Reinventing Me
by Emerald-Latias
Summary: After enduring a major ordeal, Rinoa gets a fresh start when she transfers to a new school. But when people don’t see her for who she is, she enlists the help of a reluctant teenager to reinvent herself. However, more will unravel than she ever expected.
1. Prologue – Notebook Therapy

**Reinventing Me **

**Summary – **(AU) After enduring a major ordeal, Rinoa gets an opportunity for a fresh start when she transfers to another school. But when the students don't see her for who she truly is, Rinoa takes matters into her own hands by enlisting the help of a reluctant teenager to reinvent herself. However, as the plan progresses, more will unravel than she ever bargained for.

**Disclaimer - **I do not own anything from Final Fantasy 8, and this disclaimer will apply to any future chapters as well.

**Author's Notes – **Although I don't have much to say at the moment, what I'd like to mention is that I hope you guys will like this fic as much as the other two. But with that being said, please note that I'm trying to go for a different feel this time, so don't hesitate to comment on anything you may or may not like.

…And before I incur the wrath of all those who may be still waiting for chapter 12 of _Breaking Free_, don't worry, that'll be done shortly, so sit tight. -And for all of you who aren't following that fic, you can ignore that last sentence. :)

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Prologue – Notebook Therapy**

-

_Our lives are made in these small hours,  
These little wonders,  
These twists and turns of fate,  
Time falls away,  
But these small hours,  
These small hours still remain._

_**-Rob Thomas, Little Wonders.**_

-

A gasp of pleasant surprise escaped her mouth. Finally, they were going to let her go home to her family, back to the ones who'd stuck her here for her well-being, who'd fought tooth and nail against her to stop the destructive behaviour, and who she'd profoundly loved and had missed so dearly – it had been eight long and arduous months since she'd been admitted to this facility and cut off from the rest of the world.

"Now Rinoa," Dr. Marnelle continued, "Although you have completed in-patient treatment here, you will be required to come back for check-ups every month just to see how you're doing at home. Is that understood?"

Rinoa gave a polite nod, smile broadening.

"Very well, you may go to the reception desk and leave with your parents, everything else has been taken care of. Have a safe trip home."

"I will."

The teenager got up from her navy chair and extended her hand in earnest gratitude over the maple desk separating them. The doctor accepted it and shook it firmly.

"Thank you for all you've done. I don't think I'd… still be here without your help."

The doctor shook her head. "I believe that the credit belongs to your parents for getting you here on time. I was merely doing my job."

"I guess you're right… But I still stick with what I said because I owe you too, you know. But in any case… I'd better get going now. _Bye._"

Without another word, Rinoa left the barren office space, turned right and bolted down the main hallway at full speed, earning a few _'ssshhh!!'s _from some of the rooms along the way. Although she had slowed her pace for the last stretch, she couldn't help but to giggle nervously for some reason. But at the end of her stroll across the winding faded-green corridor, Rinoa took a single look back, one last look at her eight-month past.

A single tear rolled down her cheek.

'_I'm finally going home…_'

Turning around, she saw both her parents standing by the front desk. Inevitably, more tears streamed from her eyes.

'…_I really __**am**__ going home._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After what seemed like the shortest car trip of her life, Rinoa found herself in the nearly-forgotten comfort of her bed. Although she wanted to catch up on what had happened to everyone else at home during her stay at Obel Lake Treatment Centre, there was one thing that she absolutely needed to do before that. Producing a notebook and black pen from the nightstand's drawer, Rinoa started scribbling away immediately.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Saturday, October 2nd – _

_Although I'm kind of hesitant to write this down, I have to admit that it'll probably do me some good to let it all out on paper without having to resort to talk to anybody – that's just too humiliating. This will be my own personal reminder so I won't screw up like this __**ever again.**__ I don't want to miss another eight month chunk of my life if I can help it._

_Anyways… I'd better start from the beginning here._

_I guess that the reason why this mess started was because of my ex and those last hateful words he said to me when we broke up. I felt bad for weeks and was getting more and more depressed as the days went by. It was so bad that I went on a diet just to feel good about myself again and to have something else to focus on, to have a small goal even. Heck, I even remember buying a pretty blue dress that was one size lower just to motivate me to do something other than to mope around. And well… before I knew it, I got too good at distracting myself with this 'goal'. Soon, all of those nice compliments people were giving me before turned into nagging. Nag, nag, nag. They'd always say stuff like 'You're WAY TOO thin!' or, 'Do you eat at all?'. …Hyne, it was so annoying that I hid in the library just to avoid them a couple of times. But the truly sad thing about this was that I thought they were just jealous of me and I actually liked it when I convinced myself that they were. It felt strangely empowering, even more empowering than the day I finally fit into that dress. _

_When February came, I had sunk to an all-time low. The problem was getting bigger and bigger and it was at that point where I must have hit my lowest weight. My thickest sweaters were never warm enough and I had fainted a couple of times as well. I can't really say how many times since my mind was kinda fuzzy back then, but even in my pitiful state, I knew what was happening was wrong and yet, I did nothing to stop the madness. I didn't __**want**__ to stop the madness._

_One thing I remember clearly though was the big fight I had with my parents; I think it had lasted a full two weeks, if not more before they finally forced me into Obel Lake and while I was in there, I still wouldn't stop fighting against anyone who was trying to 'help' me. I was giving the staff as much hell as I could give them for the longest time and to put it briefly, hide and seek was not their favorite game to play with me. Not to mention the fact that I should have been out of there in two months (three months tops) and not eight said a lot about my attitude towards treatment. _

_-And __**that's**__ how difficult I was back then. I only started making progress in July when I… had a close call. The whole belief that I was invincible shattered right after they resuscitated me during that stormy night and everything that they had preached before was suddenly making some sense in my head. After that point, I realized that it wasn't worth dying over my stupid ex-boyfriend's words and that's when I made peace with myself. The physical healing came afterwards. _

_So now that I'm done all treatment there, I want to put all of that stuff behind me. It's shut and closed history as far as I'm concerned, but at least my parents allowed me to change schools like I asked so… it'll be that much easier to make a fresh new start. I wasn't close to anyone at my old school anyways, so the switch should be no problem. Actually, I'm kind of excited since I officially enroll in two days. I wonder what kind of people will be there and what the teachers will be like. I guess that'll be answered soon._

_Well… since I seem to be feeling much better and what was needed to be said was already said, I suppose this 'reminder' thing is kind of finished._

_But before I forget…I want to say sorry to myself for all of the bad things I had done in the past two years and for the time that I had lost. It's time to turn a new leaf in my life and I hope that I'll do it right this time, no more screwing up._

…_But who knows? The future has no guarantees._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Satisfied with the content, Rinoa got off the bed and neatly placed the pen on the aforementioned nightstand on her right and bent down to gently tuck the notebook underneath the mattress of her bed.

Seconds later, she scampered out of her room, increasingly glad to see the worst chapter of her life ended with a new one beginning. After all, tomorrow was another day.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Prologue Comments – **In case if you guys are wondering, the actual chapters will be longer, so don't worry.

Please leave any comments or critiques you may have as they are greatly appreciated.

_-Emerald-Latias_


	2. Chapter I – The Outside World

**Author's notes – **Thank you all for the positive support in your reviews, I truly appreciate the sentiment. Anyways, since I don't have anything else to report, I might as well get on with the chapter here. Sorry for the delay, I was on a two week vacation to Europe in March and I just didn't have much time before and after it.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter I – The Outside World**

_-_

_But what you thought was real in life,  
Oh, has somehow steered you wrong,  
And now you just keep drivin' tryin' to find out where you belong,  
And I know you feel helpless now, and I know you feel alone,  
That's the same road, the same road that I'm on._

_**-3 Doors Down, The Road I'm On.**_

-

There were people everywhere. People who had looked at her, had judged her with their eyes, with their silences, with their muted way of saying, '_Why are doing this to yourself? To emulate an idol? To emulate a corpse? To show somebody up? To prove that you have self-control? …Why? I don't understand.'_

This had been the scene before she'd been admitted and ever since that day, it had remained that way. No one understood the intricacy of it all, the inner workings of her mind, the secret pain she faced day in and day out. But, as far as she was concerned, no one was even close to being worthy of that particular knowledge.

Rinoa remembered this with a wistful sigh.

'_Okay, I shouldn't be dwelling on the past anymore,_' she mused, '_I should be thinking about the present and here's a perfect opportunity to do just that…_'

Staring intently at the white refrigerator towering in front of her, in one swift and trying motion, she latched her hand onto the handle and opened the door. Never wavering, the various scents of the food inside assailed her senses as she reached inward to grab some things. After she got everything she needed, the door was shut immediately and the mingled aroma stopped wafting around her nose – the task had been a little more daunting than previously expected.

Things in hand, she calmed her breathing.

'_You're going to be fine Rinoa. You're only making your lunch for school today, nothing more. You can do it. You've already gotten this far, so why not finish?_'

Steadying her motions, Rinoa placed a bag of whole wheat bread on the counter, put an orange inside her lunch pail and wedged in a juice box. From the drawer underneath she pulled out a dull butter knife and from the cupboard above, a jar of peanut butter.

Following a simple twist of the lid and dip of the knife later, Rinoa was deftly slathering on the peanut butter on the bottom slice of her soon-to-be sandwich. After placing the second piece over the first, she wiped away the excess spread that oozed out and tossed the used knife into the nearby sink. Within moments, she took a plastic bag from the same opened drawer below, bagged the sandwich, sealed the top and put it into the pail along with the other things.

Wiping away the light sweat near her brow with the back of her hand, Rinoa stopped to briefly admire her handiwork, pleased with it even. A slight smile tugged at her lips.

She hadn't forgotten how to do this after all.

Seconds later, her meek grin was ditched for an overall look of concentration. '_Hm._ _This seems okay to bring, I think. I've got a balance of things and it's a fair amount. …No one will ever know._'

Satisfied for the moment, she grabbed the pail and skipped out of the kitchen, turned left into the immaculate living room and put the lunch pail into her backpack, which had been conveniently laid on top of the ivory-coloured couch on the long, right-hand wall. Zipping everything up securely, Rinoa took note of the slightly altered surroundings – her parents must have redecorated while she was away.

The living room's walls were painted in a rich wine-red colour, the wooden floors resurfaced with dark cherry wood panels, and the family's most ancient knick-knacks were replaced by some potted plants in the shelves closest to the adjoined entranceway in the far-left corner. But despite these eye-pleasing changes, it was nice to see that the ebony piano in the closest left corner had remained untouched.

After adorning her duster-clad form with the backpack, Rinoa casually consulted her watch and when she noted that it was just about time to go, she put on her shoes by the entranceway and left the house unceremoniously.

The light October breeze felt nice.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Standing at the end of her driveway, Rinoa aimlessly fiddled with her backpack's straps, wasting away the last of the minutes before the bus would come and take her to the new school, inevitably filled with new people, new teachers, and new… –The mere thought of it made her nervously fiddle around with the bag even more.

'_Will they like me?_'

Fiddle.

'_Will I fit in?_'

Fiddle. Fiddle.

'_Hyne I hope that it's not too awkward in class…_'

Fiddle. Fiddle. Bus.

'…_Bus? Oh!'_

When the doors opened, she took the first step and silently held her breath.

'_Here goes nothing…_'

After she'd climbed on and quickly affirmed that she was the new student to the bus driver, her eyes were drawn to the forty pairs looking straight at her, analyzing her every move, pause and nervous fidget as she quietly searched for a seat.

A slightly morose thought came to mind. _'This feels like grade nine all over again.' _

However, this thought of segregation quickly dissipated when somebody was nice enough to scoot aside and share their seat. Rinoa made a mental note to thank this girl as soon as she sat down and immediately kept that promise once she had done so.

"No prob." the girl replied after hearing her mumbled words of thanks. "What's your name? Mine's Adrienne."

Rinoa blinked hard. '_Whoa, I wasn't expecting that already._'

"Uh…mine's Rinoa."

"So _Rinoa_, you think you'll like it here?"

"_I_…think so."

"That's good. Most people here are a little wary of new students but, once they get to know you you'll find that they're nice people in general. Trust me, I know all about that. I experienced it firsthand when I had transferred to this school a year ago."

"…_Oh."_

"So is there anything else you want to know about the school?" Adrienne offered amicably, "–Boys, cliques, teachers, anything like that?"

"Is there… any kind of dress code?"

Once those words left her lips, Rinoa wanted to slap herself once she noticed the odd grimace on Adrienne's face.

'_Of all the boneheaded things I could have said… Ergh…_'

"Um, not really, no. You can wear anything as long as it's decent, have as much jewelry as you want," She paused to tuck some strands of her long, dark brown hair behind her ears to reveal a dozen silver earrings for emphasis, "-or dye your hair any colour of the rainbow. So to put it short, as long as you don't pass for a prostitute, you're good to go."

Rinoa sheepishly nodded and when the other teenager wasn't eyeing at her as if she was a nut anymore, this restored her confidence somewhat. …Or at least enough to ask another question.

"So _Adrienne…_ is there anything I should _really _know about boys, cliques or teachers?"

This little jest caused Adrienne to smirk a bit. "No, yes, and no."

Rinoa smirked a little herself. "So I take it that the boys are harmless, the cliques run the school, and the teachers are robots?"

"Close but no cigar." The girl's aquamarine eyes glinted with a certain level of mischievousness. "The boys are mostly harmless unless they find you very attractive, 'cause if they do, they'll more than likely hound you for a date. The cliques don't rule the school but you might be sucked into a sort of stereotype if you hang out with one, nothing big though. As for the teachers, they're pretty okay, but some can be a little strict with deadlines."

"That sounds pretty good to me." Rinoa declared. Then, a small, unexplained snicker escaped from her mouth. "So about those boys… Do they seriously 'hound' girls for dates?"

Adrienne chuckled. "Not really, I was only joking, but don't be surprised if someone asked you by the end of the month."

Rinoa giggled some more. "Hee…So are they really _that_ desperate?"

The other girl's smirk lessened considerably. "I don't know what's going through your head, but I know a sure bet when I see one. In fact, don't be surprised if _two _boys ask you out by the end of the month."

Rinoa's face pinkened. "_What _would… make you say that?"

The teenager's mischievous glint returned. "'Cause two-thirds of the students are guys, less than half of them are taken and from what I see right now, the odds are in your favour."

Rinoa felt her face heat up significantly. '_Me? Pretty? I think she's being too nice to me…_'

"Oh… You must be quite the shy one, because you're completely pink!"

"Um…I'm not used to compliments. That's all…"

"Oh, okay." A slightly awkward silence ensued. "So, do you know what's on your schedule?"

"No, I have to get it in the office."

"I see. You know where it is, right?"

"I…" Then, it suddenly dawned on her. "No, I don't actually. Would it be okay if-"

"-I can take you there if that's what you're asking."

Rinoa was utterly flabbergasted. '_Wow. She's __**really**__ nice. I must have been extraordinarily lucky to sit beside her today…_'

Finally, some words came out. "I…I really, really appreciate this."

"It's no problem Rinoa."

And with that, the duster-clad girl simply smiled.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Twenty minutes later, the bus had finally reached its destination, Balamb Garden. Despite the magnificent view, Rinoa didn't get much of a chance to fully immerse herself with its beauty as the throng of students offloading from the numerous buses had a way of pushing her into the school itself. Luckily for her though, wherever she was pushed, forced or crammed, Adrienne had a way of keeping nearby.

Once the mob had eventually pressed her into the first hallway inside the building, the majority of the crowd had already dissipated and Rinoa was finally free to survey the scenery. It was a breathtaking first sight with the pristine, moat-like fountains contouring the circular pathways and the large elevator, the intricate flooring and decor, and the generally-regal nature of the place.

"C'mon Rinoa, you'll get time to sight-see at lunch!" Adrienne jokingly chided as she grabbed her arm and started to guide her towards the elevator.

Once inside, it took mere seconds to reach the floor where, according to Adrienne, the principal's office was on. A hop-skip-jump later, and they were already there. But that too only lasted mere seconds as the principal, or Headmaster Cid as he called himself, sent Adrienne away to attend her own classes of the day. When she was gone, Cid had invited her to take a seat. It didn't take long before she was subconsciously fiddling with the straps of her backpack, which now rested on her lap. Cid was sitting behind his own desk, elbows on its surface, fingers intertwined with each other casually.

"So, Miss Caraway-Heartilly, as a new student enrolled in Balamb Garden, it is my honour to welcome you here and make the transition process as efficient and enjoyable as possible. However, there are some procedures that must be taken before fully integrating you to your new schedule, namely a tour of the grounds and a brief medical test."

Rinoa frowned slightly. '_I don't like the sound of that test…_'

Cid continued. "Ah, don't worry about the testing, it is a simple procedure for new students to make sure that they do not carry any dangerous illnesses and to inform the doctor of any allergies or specific conditions they may have. This is done so the infirmary doctors and nurses can treat any possible illness or injury without risk if something should happen later on."

'_Okay…That's understandable. But I wonder what kinds of things they have on record-_'

'-_Rinoa, stop worrying so much and listen to the Headmaster, he's going to give you a strange look if you zone out any more!_'

"-Oh, okay." she meekly agreed. "May I ask whose doing the tour?"

Cid sat back and grabbed a thin folder from the right side of his desk, quickly pawed through the pages and pulled the second to last one out. He scanned it briefly until he found whatever it was that he was looking for and set it down.

"The student guiding you through the Garden is Selphie Tilmitt. She'll show you the important places of the Garden as well as the individual classrooms that are present on your schedule, which I have right here."

Just as good as his word, Cid took out another page from the folder and slid it onto the furthest edge of the desk where Rinoa seized it for herself. Skimming through it, there appeared to be slight anomaly concerning third period. She peered over the paper a second time for assurance, but when the mistake was still blatantly there, she placed it on the middle of the Headmaster's spacious bureau.

"I think that there's a slight mistake here…" Then, she pointed to it with her index finger. The Headmaster's neck craned forward. "I don't recall choosing P.E in my application forms."

Cid reclined to his original position and pented his fingers, not in an evil way though. "I am sorry for not mentioning this earlier, but the Garden's regulations stipulate that students must take it every year."

"Oh, I understand now, but…I didn't bring any kind of gym clothes with me so, I don't that that I can really participate today."

"I'll allow you to be exempt from the class today, but I'll expect you to fully participate after that. Is that clear?"

When Rinoa nodded in response, there were a couple of loud, exuberant knocks at the door.

"That must be Miss Tilmitt, please excuse me for a moment."

After Cid had opened the door, Rinoa twisted in her chair and saw a petite brunette with vivid emerald-green eyes sauntering joyfully into the room. Once they made eye contact however, it was hard not to escape the vividness of those eyes. Two seconds later, and she was already in front of her, shaking her hand in a flimsy, one-sided handshake.

"Hi, I'm Selphie! Pleased to meet you Rinoa. Ready to explore the Garden?"

"…Sure?"

"Okay, let's go then!"

In a flash, she was jerked out of her seat and out of the office altogether. Oddly enough, this rapid change of location didn't seem to faze Rinoa, in fact, she kind of expected it.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"So on Side B there's the library, training center for anyone taking the SeeD-level courses, the parking lot…"

While walking alongside Selphie and listening to her brief and to-the-point explanations, Rinoa had a slight smile on her face as she took in all the sights and sounds of the Garden itself, happy about the choice she made and that she would be at this beautiful place five days a week.

"Rinoa, you're going to go in the fountain if you don't stop walking!"

'_What the? Aah!_'

Teetering near the walkway's edge, Selphie's grip on her hand stopped her in the nick of time from the possibility of taking a bath in fountain water. After she'd been saved, her face turned a fierce shade of red.

"I'm sorry, I was just thinking about stuff and-"

"-Don't worry, it happens to a lot of new students. Loads of them get preoccupied with things and before they know it-BAM! They fall into the water not even a blink of an eye later. Actually, come to think of it, you're one of the lucky ones; I usually don't catch people in time."

"That's good to hear."

Selphie gave her a peculiar look. "You okay? You sound a little too quiet for someone who nearly fell into a fountain."

Despite the odd logic, Rinoa realized that Selphie was on to something here.

'_She's right. I am being a little too quiet here.'_

'_-In fact, now that I think about it, I've been a little too quiet all day._'

'…_Maybe it's just because this is a new experience, right? …Right?_'

She never got around to answering either question.

"Selphie, what time am I supposed to be at that check-up at the infirmary?"

"Good question, hold on…Can I see your paper?"

After Rinoa handed her the paper, Selphie's eyes flitted over it, proceeded to check her watch and moments later, she motioned to her to start walking towards the other side of the circular walkway, eyes never leaving the page. Another second passed and she returned the paper. Rinoa checked at her own watch – it read 12:15.

"Says here that you should have been there fifteen minutes ago, but don't worry about it, I'll just say that we got stuck somewhere. That usually works."

Walking to the infirmary didn't take long, but it was evident that the resident doctor wasn't exactly pleased with the excuse for their tardiness; Rinoa made an educated guess and assumed that this doctor was a stickler for rules. But when Selphie left, seeing as she was done with her for the day, she was proven wrong.

"Excuse my harshness earlier," the doctor explained as she was finishing up with some passed-out boy who had an injury that Rinoa couldn't see. She turned to face her. "-it's just that that girl always brings the new students in late and it delays the rest of my afternoon schedule. …But in _any_ case, I'm doctor Kadowaki, resident doctor of the Balamb Garden infirmary."

"I'm Rinoa."

"-Pleased to meet you Rinoa. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to go ahead with the test, as I'm a little behind schedule. Have a seat over there."

"Sure."

Picking up a clipboard and pen from the desk, Dr. Kadowaki recited a few lines.

"Do you have any specific medical conditions that the Garden staff should know about?"

"No."

"Any allergies, dangerous or otherwise?"

"Not that I know of."

"Are you susceptible or prone to getting sick?"

"No, I'm pretty healthy."

"-Prone to fainting?"

Rinoa hesitated. "Um…no."

"Let me rephrase that. Are you prone to fainting after the use of administered needles for medical injections, blood tests or medical tests in general?"

"Nope."

"Last question, Rinoa. Have you ever contracted any form of dangerous illnesses or diseases in the past?"

"…If you're taking about things like cancer, then no."

The good doctor set the clipboard aside. "Okay then, all we have to do is the blood test. Please seat yourself on the edge of that empty bed over there while I prepare a few things."

Sitting down and waiting for Dr. Kadowaki, Rinoa looked around her surroundings to kill a little time. From what she saw, this place had everything a normal hospital, or infirmary in this case, should have: white walls, that sterile scent everywhere, numerous medical cabinets lining the far left wall, curtain-divided beds and – _Wait._ The patient Dr. Kadowaki was treating earlier just got up and, discerning from the vague silhouettes that the curtains provided, it didn't look like he was going to stay there very long.

Unsure of what to do, she leaped from her own bed and tried to look for the doctor. No such luck, she either wasn't in the room or she was in a secret backroom that Rinoa didn't know about. She sighed and returned to the edge of her own bed, but then she hastily changed her mind and hopped off again to peek past the divider curtains separating the both of them. The teenager on the bed was currently staring at the ceiling, almost as if he was contemplating something. But when he lowered his gaze, Rinoa withdrew her head so that he wouldn't catch her looking.

For the most part, she thought that she was successful in that regard when she sat on her own bed again.

'_That was so close. I just hope that the doctor comes soon._'

The sound of footsteps confirmed this wish. However, just as she was waiting for the doctor to come around to the bed and say something like, _'Extend your right arm for the needle.', _her eyes met up with an alien figure – that boy's alien figure.

"…Um, are you supposed to up? Shouldn't you be waiting for the doctor or something?"

This boy appeared momentarily frozen with his one hand latched to the infirmary's doorknob. But of course, this paralysis easily shook off.

"…You must be new." And then he left. Almost in an uncanny fashion, Dr. Kadowaki popped out from the back not even a moment later.

"Dr. Kadowaki," This caught the doctor's attention. "That guy, on the other bed… He kind of left."

The lack of expression on the doctor's face clearly indicated that this must have been a trivial matter to her. And when she asked for her right arm to prep it for the needle, that ended the mystery altogether.

After the disinfecting swabbing was done though, Dr. Kadowaki was nice enough to briefly enlighten her.

"Don't worry about that boy. He's disappeared from the infirmary enough times that I've given up chastising him for good, but enough of that. Rinoa, could you please tighten your hand into a closed fist?"

'………_**Ow! That hurt!**_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After the blood sample was taken and she was discharged from the infirmary altogether, Rinoa deducted that it must have been reaching the tail end of lunch. Half of the cafeteria's population had already left, and many tables were empty and littered with little remnants of food.

Figuring that there wasn't enough time to make a decent effort at socializing as she'd planned, Rinoa didn't bother finding a table where she could meet new people. She simply picked the closest one to the entrance, sat down and took out the contents of her lunch pail, occasionally poking at the bandage at the crook of her right elbow.

Midway through the second bite of her sandwich however, someone came to sit beside her, making the otherwise-vacant table a little less lonesome. Rinoa turned her head to the right and put down the sandwich at the same time and saw that this person wasn't Adrienne, Selphie, or even that guy from the infirmary, but was someone who couldn't have known of her existence at the Garden prior to this. He had unruly dark brown hair with a stray caramel highlight or two, matching dark brown eyes, relatively pale skin and was wearing a light blue sweater and black pants.

"Why hello there," he greeted in a smooth voice, "I've never seen you before, could you possibly be my long-lost twin?"

Rinoa's eyebrows went hiding into her hairline. "_-Huh?_"

Seconds later, her brain regained some basic functioning. '_Unless if my life is some kind of soap opera plotline that I'm not aware of, I'd say that this is one really, __**really**__ weird situation going on…_'

"Sorry if that sounded like some kind of bad pick-up line, but I couldn't resist. You looked as if you were me in drag. What's your name? Who knows, it could be possible that we might actually be related."

Rinoa blinked twice. '_Okay, this just keeps on getting weirder and weirder… I'd better just say my name to clear this up._'

"My name's Rinoa Caraway-Heartilly, what about you?"

"Hm. Nope, I don't think we're related, but my name's Ryan Alts," Then, he smiled cheekily, "…in case if you wanted to know it anyway."

Rinoa smirked at this and then, she turned some more to face him better.

"…And what makes you say that?" she teased.

"Because I'm willing to bet that you have third period Phys. Ed and that you don't know where it's supposed to be."

The teenage girl was immediately silenced. _'How did he…?'_

"I take it that I was right for both things?"

Rinoa nodded.

"Well, if you wait up for me and my friends, we're going there for third. You can follow us."

After his response, there was still a single question floating around in her head.

"Thank you for your offer, but how did you know I was a new student? I mean, it's possible to never see some people who attend the Garden since it's so huge."

A sly grin stretched across his face. "Do you honestly want me to answer that?"

Rinoa nodded again.

"You were picking at that blood test band-aid."

'_Okay…Maybe I'll be able to survive the outside world __**after**__ all…_'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Once again I'm sorry for the wait, stuff kept on happening. But aside from that, I hope you liked the first chapter despite the fact that Rinoa is kinda OOC, but don't worry, this is only because of the prior events, she'll eventually regain her usual traits once she's comfortable again. In fact, you can see little bits of progress even now!

You can ignore that,

_-Emerald-Latias_


	3. Chapter II – Whirlwind

**Author's Notes – **Just in case if you didn't know, the reason for my continual lateness, outside the usual excuses, is because I alternate between updating this and Breaking Free. Meaning, I update this one, then the other, then this again, and so on and so forth. You guys get the idea right?

So if you see me updating very close in date to the other fic, that means I'm working really hard. Not like it'll happen, but… it's a nice thought all the same. Hehe… I'll stop rambling now.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter II – Whirlwind**

_-_

_Growing up, it all seems so one-sided,  
Opinions all provided,  
The future pre-decided,  
Detached and subdivided._

_**-Rush, Subdivisions**__**.**_

-

Her male doppelganger rakishly tilted his head. "So now that the issue's settled, you wanna come?"

Over the course of several years, Rinoa gradually learned that when it came to chance invitations, one should be exceptionally cautious in decision and in reply. Today was an exception to that rule.

"Sure."

"Okay then," He got up. "Follow me, _mademoiselle_."

When he courteously extended his arm and put on a debonair smile, it took a full second before it all computed in her head. She hid a minor blush by turning her attention, and her head, towards the things on the table.

"Hold on a second… I have to put this stuff away first."

Out of the corner of her eye, as she stowed some things into her pail, Rinoa noticed his arm retract and his smile fade.

'_It's probably for the best. I'm not worth the effort anyway._'

Once finished, she quietly got up and followed him to the other side of the cafeteria where a couple of fresh new faces entered her sights. And when Ryan suddenly halted, she took a quick scan of the small group. Rinoa noticed that they all seemed to be studying her intently as if there was a possibility that she could've been hazardous to their health. Now the teenager finally understood what Adrienne had talked about when she warned her about student wariness to newcomers.

Just then, someone was brave enough to break the silence.

"-You related to him?" a blond sitting in the far corner grunted to her, finger crudely pointed at Ryan.

"Uh…no."

"Good, 'cause you don't want to be related to this screwball over here. Right, Alts?"

Some polite titters broke out and Ryan shifted his body rather uncomfortably.

"Err…yeah, good thing Seif."

Seif, or whatever his name was, sneered. "_Yeah, yeah, whatever."_ He rapidly changed gears. "Hey new girl, what's your name?"

She mutely pointed to herself. "Me? …My name's Rinoa."

"…Sounds decent enough. So tell me _Rinoa_, are you one of those goody two-shoe types?"

Now Rinoa was the one who felt like squirming under the intense heat of the spotlight.

"…I don't live for school if that's what you're asking."

The blond sighed in relief. "-Finally, a new kid who _isn't _a smart-ass pencil pusher. Hyne, I was getting so sick of all those know-it-alls popping up around here."

'_Okay…_' She stood there blankly, not knowing whether to respond on this.

"Either way," the blond continued, "-the name's Seifer. Just as a forewarning, you'll be hearing it a lot. Apparently, being on the teachers' blacklist tends to make them shout out your name more often."

She let out a small laugh. "…I think I'll remember that."

"Rinoa," Ryan apparently had the capacity to speak again. "Since it's running later than I thought, I'm going to show you where Gym class is now. I'll introduce you to everybody else another time. -Lets' go."

"Okay." As she was leaving, Rinoa turned her back towards the rest of the group. "Nice meeting you guys."

Save for Seifer, who actually said something coherent, all she received was more like a collective grunt than an actual response to her genuine goodbye. Another half a minute passed and the duster-clad girl was already out of the cafeteria.

Once outside of the cafeteria's walls, their pace slowed considerably and Rinoa overheard Ryan exhale loudly.

Her mind went abuzz. "…Is there something wrong?"

Their pace stopped altogether and when she looked over, it was only to find him with a weird look on his face, almost like a concentrated squint.

"Seifer. I wasn't expecting him to be there. He wasn't when I left my seat to go meet you."

Rinoa's face screwed into a confused expression, rivalling that of Ryan's. None of this made much sense, coming from an outsider's perspective.

'_Why would he say that about a friend? Didn't he want me to meet them so that we could go to Gym class together?_'

'_Wait, if that's true then…why was he so eager to leave? Unless…_'

Then it clicked.

'_Boys that like you aren't supposed to make sense.' _

'_Still… I should probably ask why. Maybe I'm missing something here._'

"Why is Seifer sitting there wrong? Isn't he your friend?"

His face lit up in a strange way. "No. It's just the opposite; he's a friend to everyone else at that table _but_ me. He and I don't really get along."

Things finally started making sense. "…Oh."

"Rinoa, I know that this'll sound weird coming from a guy you barely know but," His tone became sepulchral. "Whatever you do, be careful around that guy."

This warning intrigued her. "Why? Does he have a bad reputation or something?"

"Yeah he does, but that's not the point."

Rinoa arched her eyebrows. "Huh? I don't follow you."

"His bad rep is only with the teachers because he doesn't listen to them half the time. What I'm talking about is outside the classroom, the rep nearly nobody knows about."

They started walking down the corridor again, albeit very slowly. "So what is it about him that I should be careful about?"

"_That,_" He paused, "-I don't know for sure. All I know is that one day, he did something and my sister's never been quite the same since."

"_Um_…I'd hate to sound rude, _but_… why are you telling all this to someone you just met?"

Still walking, they exchanged glances for a moment. "It's because you seem to be a nice person and to be honest, you're nearly a dead-ringer for my sister. Hell… you're nearly a dead-ringer for me too!"

Rinoa giggled. Suddenly, the air felt lighter and they walked faster.

"…I'll keep that in mind."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

To Rinoa's amazement, it was only a few minor twists and turns later before they arrived where the class was apparently being held according to Ryan. Passing through the doors, she immediately noticed the immaculate nature of the _…library?_

She immediately froze on the spot. Standing stock-still, her mouth slackened. "Ryan? Did you …_ah_ happen to _forget _where a normal gym class is _supposed_ to be held?"

Her query wasn't resolved with a traditional tell-all answer, only ignored with an explosion of muffled laughter.

Swivelling on the spot, Rinoa swatted him with her pail and shouted an undignified _'Meany!'_ to her _alleged_ guide's face.

He stopped his snickering long enough to reply. "Sorry I just… hehe…couldn't resist…" His cheeky smile from the cafeteria made another zealous appearance. "I just wanted to see if you actually listened to the guide on your Garden tour, but I guess you didn't. Don't feel bad, nobody ever does."

She swatted him again just for good measure. He started laughing harder.

"…You know, for a near-stranger, you're pretty brave to pull a practical joke like this. You didn't know if I had a sense of humour or not. For all you know, I could have gotten mad and…uh… kicked you in the shins."

He covered his face with his hand and was nearly dying with muted laugher. Rinoa guessed that it would be a while before his voice would become audible again. After a couple wasted seconds, just before he was fully able to speak, he lifted his hand away and looked at her with a lingering smirk on his lips.

"Well there's your proof right here, see? You _didn't_ kick me in the shins _after _all. _–And look,_ you had the perfect opportunity to kick me too."

'…_Damn, he's right._'

"-Plus that killer grin's giving you away."

She shook her head in mock defeat when an errant giggle escaped. "Okay, so you caught me… It _was_ a little funny."

"See, you _do _have a sense of humour!"

"_So you won_…_big deal._" she said in a hushed voice. "-_But you better stop talking so loud before you get us the both of us kicked out._"

"_-Correction._ We already _got_ kicked out so I can talk as loud as I want."

Rinoa blinked hard. "…What do you mean? Did I miss something here?"

Ryan silently motioned for her to turn around with his fingers and when she had done so, she saw that the surly old librarian behind the returns counter was evidently glaring daggers at both of them.

"_See, that's her 'I'm-gonna-throw-century-old-dictionaries-at-you-if-you-don't-get-the-hell-out-of-here' glare._" He quickly enlightened her at whisper-level.

"_Oh sure,__** now**__ you whisper.._"

The librarian's glare narrowed furthermore and before there was a chance to squeak in a fast, _'-Sorry!'_, they both found that their legs had already carried them out of the library and back into the populated main hallway.

The teenage girl sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Nevermind Seifer, I think_ I'm_ going to be the number one student on the staff's blacklist. …Thanks a lot."

"Aw, cheer up Rinoa. Just because you managed to piss off the librarian on your first day doesn't mean you're going to end up on the staff's blacklist."

She jolted out of her reverie. "_-Hey!_ You were the one who got us kicked out because you couldn't stop talking so loud!"

"Well you have to admit that it was fun joke while it lasted."

She rolled her eyes playfully. "_Ooh,_ you're nothing but a troublemaker, Ryan Alts!"

"_**You got that right Rinoa." **_A voice not too far away chimed behind her. Rinoa turned around only to find none other than Adrienne herself now in front of her with an indigo duffel bag under her arm.

"…_Adrienne?_" she mumbled, still in half-shock, "How do you know this guy?"

Her former bus-mate simply smirked at that one. "That _troublemaker_, as you called him, is my juvenile twin brother."

Rinoa nearly found herself on the verge of speechlessness when she rasped out, "…_Oh,_ _that's a very good explanation._"

Unwittingly, the lunch pail-wielding teenager's mind went elsewhere.

'_Aside from the hair and the shape of her face, I don't know why Ryan thought I looked like her, I look nothing like her. She's taller, prettier, and I wouldn't be surprised if she was smarter than me too._'

'-_Still, I wonder what he was referring to when he said that she was never the same since…_'

"…_So,_" Adrienne drawled, breaking the silence, "What did this goon do to you that made you realize that he's rightfully nothing but trouble?"

Before she could answer, he cut in. "-She fell for the old library trick."

"…_Ugh_." The female twin slapped her forehead in disgust. "Ryan, haven't you learned by now that tricking the new people at the Garden won't get you anywhere or anything but bruises and cuts?"

At that instant, Ryan had the biggest grin plastered on his face. "Yeah, but this time was different – I didn't get punched, kicked or slapped for once. –_And, _unlike _you_, dear sister, _she's _got a decent sense of humour. Am I right Rinoa?"

When Adrienne glanced at her, Rinoa couldn't help but back away uncomfortably. "Oh no… I'm staying _out_ of this one."

"That was probably a wise decision." She turned towards her brother once more. "-I'm going to take her to gym class, so _you_ won't be able to try and trick her again. –Come on, lets' go Rinoa."

No sooner said than done, Adrienne was already starting to walk away from the library's entrance, and since her pace left little time for a proper farewell, Rinoa only waved goodbye to the other teenager left behind in the figurative dust.

It was only a dozen strides later when a question sprang into her head and in succession, was promptly made known to the girl leading the way through the scores of students.

"Adrienne…how did you and your brother both know what my third period class was?"

She swivelled her body to face her for a second. "It's third period Rinoa. Everyone has gym."

"Oh."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"…_The training center?_" Rinoa wondered aloud in the desolate hall leading up to the monster-infested room. "_I was told that this place was only used for SeeD-level courses._"

"Higher-rank gym classes _are _SeeD-level courses." Adrienne informed her dryly. "With all of the crap they make you do in this class, it'd be a crime _not_ to call it a SeeD-level course. Heck, it's even a proven fact that the most out-of-shape kids who come to the Garden and take this class wind up with washboard abs by the end of the semester."

Rinoa gulped. "…I don't like the sound of that first part."

"Okay, so I might have been exaggerating a little. But it's not like Mr. Reiyn's going to chase you around with a katana and force you to do push-ups until your arms fall off."

"That's…reassuring."

"Don't worry, everybody gets apprehensive at first but they all turn out alright in the end."

"…Tell that to the knots in my stomach."

"Oh Rinoa, you'll be fine. I'm not the least bit athletic myself and I'm surviving."

"Okay, okay…" she conceded. "So …is there anything good about this class that I should know about?"

"It depends on what you're looking for."

They were now approaching the end of the hallway, where the sealed doorway stood and a couple of students were scattered about, leaning against the wall, pacing around, sitting on the floor, or just waiting in general.

"What if… I'm looking to pass the class with all my limbs attached where they're supposed to be?"

Adrienne smirked. "Then the good part about this class is that you learn your physical limitations. -With your limbs still intact I might add."

"Okay," Rinoa couldn't repress a hint of a smile. "Then what if I'm trying to forget about how crummy last year was and make up for so much wasted time?"

"Then you find yourself an attractive guy from class and waste a Friday night with him to make new crummy memories to replace the old ones."

Rinoa almost choked at her suggestion and Adrienne followed suit from her reaction.

"Hyne, I'm sorry… I honestly thought that you wanted a joke answer for that. My brother was right. I guess I don't have a comical bone in my body after all."

"…No, it's okay.It's just that I was surprised about how you interpreted it because I never thought of what I said being taken _that_ way. I must admit that it was funny suggestion though, anyone you recommend wasting my weekend on?"

Adrienne's smirk returned in full vigour. "Ryan's right about you, you _do_ have a sense of humour. As for any suggestions, I can't think of any off the top of my head…that is, if you honestly_ wanted _to waste that weekend of yours'."

"…No thank you, I was only kidding about that."

She exhaled in relief. "Oh good…I would have been worried if you took me seriously."

"Well, at least one thing I don't have to be worried about today is gym. I got permission to sit today's class out from the Headmaster since I didn't know about it or brought any extra clothes either."

"Rinoa…I'd hate to burst your bubble but, I wouldn't put it past Mr. Reiyn if he made you still do stuff with the rest of us in your regular clothes."

Rinoa's eyebrows furrowed slightly. "…Even with an official pardon from Cid?"

"Well it's happened before to a couple of new students before you …so yeah, I think he'd still make you do stuff."

"Crap. I really didn't feel like getting all sweaty today…especially in my regular clothes."

"You can borrow some of mine if you want. I've got some extra clothes in my duffel."

"…Thank you so much. Hyne, I honestly don't know where I'd be if I didn't sit beside you on the bus today."

She handed Rinoa the set. "If I were to make an educated guess, I think that you'd be …in the hallways, still looking for the office."

Rinoa laughed. "…Yeah, you're probably right."

"Do you want me to show you where the bathroom is?"

The raven-haired girl declined. "No, I think I'll be fine by myself this time."

"Okay, see you later then."

Rinoa nodded. "Will do."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

'_You are not fat. You are an average, normal-sized teenager. You're not a blimp, elephant or marshmallow, you're fine just the way you are._'

'…_But why are my eyes telling me different?_'

'-_Then ignore what your eyes distort and focus on what the mirror reflects._'

'_It's so hard…_'

She left the bathroom as fast as she entered it, body now cloaked Adrienne's loaned set and her own clothes bunched in her hand. The voyage to the reclusive bathroom had chewed up a lot of time, time she wasn't sure she had in the first place. She marched on in a steady pace, looking for any familiar landmarks.

Within minutes she eventually realized that she'd been ambling round the same circular path for about two complete circuits now. Finally aware of her surroundings, she found the designated hallway in a flash and when she saw next to no students lingering about, she quickened her cadence, causing her t-shirt to flap against her lithe frame noisily.

When she ultimately reached her target destination, she noticed that Adrienne was nowhere to be seen by the mechanical sliding doors. Venturing a guess, she walked in front of the retractable steel walls. They hissed open effortlessly.

A hand stopped her from going any further.

"…You don't want to do that."

Rinoa's mind jumped and her body flinched. '-_Who does he think he is?_'

The hand let go of her and she turned around.

…It wasn't that guy from the infirmary like she had thought; it was the tall blond from the cafeteria.

"…But isn't that where the class is supposed to be?"

He smirked haughtily. "No, not by a long shot. …Unless the lesson's on how to get mauled by T-Rexaurs when you're stupid enough to go in unarmed."

"…Okay that _was _pretty stupid of me, but where's the class if nearly nobody's here then?"

He shrugged. "Anywhere's possible. Suckers who actually show up on time get picked up here to go Hyne-knows-where for the hassle of the day. Nine times out of ten, it's grunt work for the Garden."

"…So, you're telling me I'm late?"

"Looks that way."

"Aw crap. Now I'm in trouble."

"Correct me if I'm wrong but, didn't you say that you _weren'_t one of those losers who only live for school?"

'…_He actually remembered what I said?_'

"Yeah, but… well, this one girl, Adrienne Alts, told me that the teacher of this class wouldn't care if I didn't have my stuff so I borrowed some of hers' and…you know the rest. …Plus it doesn't help that I kinda pissed off the librarian earlier."

"Are you talking about Alts's older sister or twin? Sometimes I can't remember names for the life of me."

'_Ryan and Adrienne have another sister?_'

"She's the twin sister."

"Then I was thinking of Alexis before. So it's serious and hard-headed Adrienne who told you, huh? I wouldn't blame you for believing her. Sometimes I'm accidentally convinced into believing what she says too."

"…Adrienne's not like you're describing her."

He scoffed. "Then you haven't really met the _real_ her."

"I'll make my own judgement, thank you very much."

"Aren't you the feisty one, are you sure you're not related to any them?"

"No…I just don't like it when people tell me what to believe."

"Fair enough, I respect that. You said your name was _Rinoa_, right?"

Rinoa smirked a little. "…I thought you said you were bad at remembering names."

"I didn't say all the time, besides, that was only hour ago. How stupid do you think I am?"

Despite his brusque way of talking, her words came easily. "Well, within that hour I've known of you, I've heard an awful lot about things that would lead me to believe that you were."

He countered back smartly. "I hope you realized that you already contradicted yourself in less than a minute there."

Thinking back, Rinoa caught the paradox of her words as well.

"…So I have." she affirmed. "You want to start from scratch again? No preconceived ideas this time?"

"No."

"-Why not?"

"Because for all I know you're going to start acting like a bitch and I'll forget the actual first impression you gave me and I'll screw up the impression I gave you."

"And what did I come across as?"

"-Lost and nervous. –Me?"

"Self-assured and a little witty towards the end."

"See what I mean now? Who'd want to screw up that?"

She giggled. "…Okay. I get your point."

"I knew you would."

"-Now you're being cocky."

"Does it look like I care to you?"

"Not really."

"Good, I want you to keep that impression."

Rinoa's face split open into a full-blown grin.

"…Well either way, I think I have to go find out where they went to. I don't think it'd be a good idea to be any later than I am. See you around Seifer."

With a simple wave, she turned the other way and left quite unceremoniously. In spite of her quick departure, she could have sworn that she'd heard a reply of, '_-Same here.'_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Now in front of the main roundabout hallway after a good twenty minutes worth searching here and there, Rinoa took a moment to sit on the ledge by the entrance doors. She wiped away the light sweat collected near her brow.

A sigh escaped as her feet throbbed lightly.

'…_I forgot how much walking normal people did. Hyne, I'm out of shape._'

'-_I still have to keep on looking for Adrienne and them though._'

She made an attempt to get up, but the temptation to sit on the ledge for a little longer was too much to resist. Minutes later, after yet another failed attempt, she chastised herself.

'_Rinoa, get up you lazy bum. They aren't just going come to you by wishful thinking._'

This time she got up and stayed up. Next on the agenda, she thought to herself, was to walk up to the large map in front of the elevators and check it for any possible spots she could have missed in her search.

'_Nope. It doesn't look like I missed anywhere…_' she mused. '_Well, I guess that there's no point anymore, might as well pack it in and change. Besides, I don't think that the teacher could give me trouble since I had Cid's permission to not go anyway._'

She turned on her heels and started to walk away from the map, taking random glances. Unable to resist the urge anymore, Rinoa took in all the things within her range of vision and fully immersed herself in the scenery that the Garden had to offer, doing the very thing she was twice denied of earlier.

She closed her eyes with momentary delight. '_Hyne, I still can't get over how beautiful this place is… If only I had the chance to take strolls like this everyday…-Ooph!_'

Her landscape-induced trance shattered the instant her body collided with another person's. Naturally, an apology rapid-fired out of her mouth before her eyes even had the remotest possibility of opening.

"_**-Sorry, I wasn't looking and-"**_

Her eyes opened.

In the longest split-second of her life, Rinoa took a glimpse of him as he remained stationary from recoil. His piercing blue eyes softened with a distracted blink, his lips subtly parted a fraction, his shoulders tensed away from her, and his head faintly jolted back in surprise. For reasons beyond her, she committed his fleeting expression to memory.

"…You're that guy from the infirmary."

…And so he left as quickly as he came.

Rinoa's head tilted curiously, eyeing his form from afar. Now there was a large question mark floating around in her skull.

'_Hold on a second, he seems to be wearing gym clothes…' _

'_-Maybe I found a way to get to class after all…_'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Whoa… I think I scared myself there. I actually finished a chapter in less than a week! …Well, it's technically a month but…considering I started this on the ninth after finishing Breaking Free… _Aah, whatever…_

_-Emerald-Latias_


	4. Chapter III – Accelerated Immersion

**Author's Notes – **Hi, nothing to report other than I'm really happy that I'm getting back in the swing of things regarding updates. God, I swear that I'm under the influence of a freaking miracle here; I can't believe I wrote a chapter for both of my stories in a span of two weeks. Either that or I'm possessed. Both could work in the long run I think.

Regardless, I'd better start writing so that this streak of insanity continues…

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter III – Accelerated Immersion**

_-_

_You drown in deeper oceans,  
Inventing new religions,  
They smile and stab my back,  
And I lie and have to laugh,  
And it won't take long to burn,  
All eyes on me._

_**-Goo Goo Dolls, All Eyes On Me.**_

-

After a couple of trying moments, Rinoa realized that tailing the infirmary guy to the gym class's elusive location might not have been the wisest of choices. Most of this new line of reasoning owed to the fact that this guy walked ultra-fast and looked back an awful lot. So needless to say, attempting to follow someone like that in stealth, while trying to keep up no less, wasn't exactly the _easiest_ thing to do in the world.

Cautiously poking her head from her conveniently-placed hiding spot, Rinoa crumpled over and promptly wheezed.

'_I give up. Following this guy is more exercise than I'll get from the class itself.'_

A rough cough coursed through her throat painfully.

'_Hyne, maybe Adrienne wasn't exaggerating when she said that this class whipped anyone who took it into shape. I'm not even in it yet and I feel like I'm getting the whipping experience of a lifetime already._'

'_Still, I have to give these clothes back to her at the very least. I'll probably have to follow him whether I want to or not.'_

Suddenly, a voice drawled behind her. "You know, for someone who wanted to go to class, following Leonhart wasn't the brightest choice in the world."

Rinoa turned around.

"Oh… so we meet again, huh?"

It was Seifer.

He shrugged. "I suppose it was bound to happen at one point or another."

"Yeah, you're right. So who was it that I shouldn't be following?"

"I didn't say shouldn't, I said it wasn't a bright idea."

"…Right, right. So who's a waste of time to follow?"

"Now you're twisting my words new girl." he retorted with mock-anger.

She couldn't help but laugh a little. "Sorry, I didn't know I had to be so _precise _with you."

He smirked. "Well now you know."

Another small laugh escaped. "Okay… So _who_, pray tell, is not a good idea to follow and _why_?"

"The _who_ is Leonhart, the guy you were following, and the _why _is because he's an idiot."

"Well… aren't you a little biased?"

"So sue me. The guy's not what you'd call the friendly type, and if he would have caught you following, Hyne have mercy on your ears. He's not socially adept if you catch my drift."

"Thanks for warning me, but I think I'll be fine. Besides, didn't I tell you that I didn't like it when people told me what to think?"

"So? This is different. What I just told you is common Garden knowledge and even if you don't listen to me, you'll find out soon enough."

"…Then I guess I'll find out soon enough. Thanks for looking out for me though, I appreciate it. _See you later_."

And with that, she scurried to try and catch up to the supposedly-unsocial teenager and regain the time she'd spent on elsewhere. Miraculously enough, her legs didn't fall off and she didn't cough up blood when she started jogging again.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

It took a good two minutes until she was back into the swing of things, the first minute went towards closing the gap which her break had caused, and the other spent breaking her neck to conceal herself when he stopped, an astonishment in itself, to tie a shoelace. How he managed to miss all of the intensely-bewildered stares directed at her from the people around him was a whole other conundrum. A conundrum Rinoa was immensely thankful for.

As he continued walking without as much as a backward glance, she continued following without as a much as an outward breath. Their previous rhythm silently resumed.

Moving along the circular hallway, Rinoa noticed a shift in pace as her two-step-then-stop gait quickened into a four-step-no-stop pace to follow his. Despite being aware of his penchant to walk faster than she could run, alarm bells went off in her head. Some more sounded off when she saw the same shrub, and even more when she followed him past the library doors, ringing so violently that she thought that her brain would be buzzing forever. But when he turned around, it wasn't as climactic as the bells made her believe.

"I'm not your ticket to class, don't follow me again."

Whereas his words were terse, his cold, glacial eyes spoke volumes. He left once again without a sound and the realization of discovery finally hit her.

'…_Oops.'_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"Got caught, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but I was doing good for the longest time until he started leading me into the library. I was caught once I went through the doors and he turned around."

"…That's strange, even for him."

"_-How so?_"

The shrill ring of the bell interrupted their conversation as Rinoa was leaning lazily against a ledge in the main hallway, waiting for Seifer's response. As it turned out, she never did find the class but instead, found the tall blond outside the infirmary doors when she came out from the other side, after mercifully getting the okay to change out of the borrowed gym clothes there and to retrieve her previously-forgotten backpack, around… thirty minutes post-library scene.

And as if she needed more enigmas on her plate, her presence or loud footsteps, she wasn't sure of which, seemingly persuaded him out of going past the doors and into chatting her up again. Rinoa came to the conclusion that Adrienne should have warned her about the Garden boys' tendencies of having no happy medium when it came to social aptitude.

Luckily, she didn't mind handling the higher extremity.

Seifer shrugged passively as the students started to filter into hallway. "It's strange because he didn't blast you on the spot and because he picked a place where he couldn't yell. Hyne, he must _really_ love you, or hate you, I'm not sure which. Either way, he should have caught you sooner, no offense."

"-None taken." A cog suddenly turned in Rinoa's head. "Come to think of it, I found it weird that he never caught on when people were giving me weird looks because I was following him so _sneakily_."

Seifer snorted. "There's no way in hell that you were following him _sneakily_. You made enough noise when I saw you trying to follow him the first time that I'm surprised he didn't scream '_**Earthquake!**_', nevermind catch you right then."

She playfully punched him in the arm. "Hey, that was mean!"

"No," he countered while rubbing his arm lightly, "-_that _was mean. Your bony knuckles hurt."

She reflexively flinched.

"Bah, I'm getting tired of this subject. So, do you hate Garden yet?"

Rinoa blinked dumbly.

"Um…" Her brain froze under all of the new information. Eventually, something came out. "Not sure."

He smirked. "Don't worry. You'll grow to resent it in time."

With a perplexed look on her face, Rinoa was just about to comment on his warped remark when-

"There you are Rinoa! Where have you… -_been?_"

…Adrienne and a small gaggle of girls popped out of nowhere. Seifer's smirk broadened and Rinoa noticed that she recoiled subtly, almost stepping on another brunette's feet.

"Well, well, if it isn't Adrienne Alts. Still as bitter as always?" he said dryly. Adrienne's facial expression flickered slightly but showed no sign of the bitterness, anger or anything outright.

She rolled her eyes. "No, but I'll take Rinoa off your hands. I have to show her where her fourth period is."

"…Right." He mimicked Adrienne by rolling his own eyes. "-I'm going. And just for future reference, even **I** know when I'm not wanted. You don't have to play stupid."

She rolled her eyes again. "Whatever. Come with us Rinoa, I'll introduce you to the group while we walk to your class."

Rinoa meekly nodded. "…Sure."

Before leaving, she wanted to say goodbye or something to the retreating Seifer but the chance to do so and follow through never came up. One of the girls sort of yanked her away towards the elevator before any words could come out.

At that point, the duster-clad girl couldn't help but feel a little sorry for Seifer somehow.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Following the short and crowded elevator trip upwards, Rinoa felt like her eyes had been bespectacled with beer goggles or that they hadn't really paid attention to Adrienne's friends before because all of a sudden, the notion of wanting nothing more than crawl into a deep, dark hole or hide inside a Moogle costume became very appealing, seductive even.

'_Hyne…I'm like an ugly duckling beside all of them. Why does every girl in the Garden have to be so darn pretty?_'

A blink of an eye later and she was thoroughly confused. How did they end up near her classroom's door? Adrienne's introducing one of them? _Better listen,_ she hastily thought. And when she managed to stay put and not appear visibly depressed during the introduction of the celestial beauties, Rinoa thought that it was nothing short of a medical marvel.

"Rinoa, this is-" She pointed to a pixie-like blonde with striking green eyes and short hair, "-Eden."

Eden voiced a polite but mechanical hi.

"And this is-" She gestured towards celestial beauty number two, a willowy brunette with hazel eyes, two violet streaks in her medium-length hair and an indifferent expression on her face, "-Ivy."

Adrienne wasted no time for pleasantries and introduced celestial beauties three and four, a sandy brown-haired and brown-eyed girl and another blonde with sharp grey eyes. "And this is Lucy and Natalia."

The second brunette, Lucy, attempted a conversation when the introductions ended. "So, your name's Rinoa, right?"

Rinoa gave her a nervous nod. The other girl must have been at least a head taller than she.

"Do you live around here to start with or did you move?"

She twitched. "Um, I live around here, but I used to live in Deling when I was little."

Lucy's mouth gaped in comprehension. "Ohh, I see. I used to live in Galbadia until three years ago."

"Lucy, don't bore her to death with the trivial small talk, say something interesting for a change." Ivy cut in unceremoniously. "-Ah screw it, I have to go to get my stuff. Hope you survive the bore-fest Rinoa. -Nice meeting you."

As soon she stormed off in the opposite direction. All of the girls sort of looked around at each other, Rinoa included.

Eden was the first to comment. "What was that all about?"

Lucy wistfully sighed. "I probably said the wrong thing in her opinion, _again._"

The din carried on with Natalia's rapid-fire deduction. "I don't know, but if I had to make a guess, I'd say that she's having a severe mood swing."

"Guys, guys…settle down a little." Adrienne hushed. "-Can you honestly take her mood at face level, after what she told us? She can't control if she's acting like this right now, so we should just try to grin and bear it."

Rinoa's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. '…_Grin and bear what?_'

"You look lost Rinoa. Something the matter?" Eden remarked. Her question effectively brought her out of her tiny reverie.

"_Oh._ I'm a little confused because I really didn't follow most of what you all just said and I was… sort of wondering about it. Not that it's any of my business or anything."

Adrienne shook her head. "No, it's okay, we'll tell you. It's not like you won't find out sooner or later, not to mention it's probably better if you heard it from one of us anyway."

She was still confused. "…Find out what?"

"You know Ivy, the girl who just left?"

She nodded obediently.

"-She's a month pregnant." Natalia stated plainly, crossing her arms casually. "Got knocked up by her boyfriend and she just found out at the doctor's today. Don't be surprised if you'll hear a lot of wailing later, the poor sap doesn't know yet and she's going to break the news to him today."

Rinoa frowned. "…That's so sad."

Adrienne had a sad grimace on. "-And that's not even including the tragic part."

"What's… the tragic part?"

"It was her first time, his too. And from what she was saying, they weren't reckless about it either. I guess bad luck outweighed the next to non-existent odds."

"_Oh._" Her frown deepened. "…Was he a nice guy?"

"If it answers your question, he only showed his nice side to her, treated her like a princess and everything, but he's a jerk to nearly everyone else."

"Yeah, and now he'll end up being a nice seventeen-year old father to the kid too." Natalia quipped.

"Nat!" Eden chided. "Nobody deserves what's happening to them, don't be so snide."

"Sorry," The other blonde retorted. "-it's not my fault I can't stand that Squall guy at all."

"Nat, you mixed up his name again. Ivy's boyfriend is Paul, not Squall."

Nat shrugged. "Like I care. They're practically interchangeable as far as I'm concerned. Hell, their names even rhyme!"

Lucy had a tiny smirk on her face. "They're not quite interchangeable, Natalia. If I remembered properly, one of them turned you down and the other broke your heart when he asked Ivy out."

She gave the towering brunette a five-star glare. "Shut up Lucy."

Lucy's smirk grew exponentially. "Admit it, I got you there Nat."

"-And like I said before, shut up Lucy." She turned towards Rinoa. "You'd better get into your class now Rinoa, this might get ugly."

Unsure if she was joking or not, Rinoa complied and went into the class wordlessly, the abrupt change in volume almost came like shock to her. Adrienne soon followed after her.

"Interesting bunch I hang out with, huh Rinoa?"

Rinoa didn't comment, choosing to keep her reservations about the bunch silent. The emerging grin gave her away though.

"I'll take that as a _'yes'_ then."

Her resolved faded as the urge to smile grew stronger. "…I suppose you can call them that."

Adrienne laughed a little. "Don't worry, you'll get used to them soon, especially Lucy and Natalia's constant sniping at each other. After a while, it gets quite amusing actually."

Rinoa's brain slowed to register her comment.

"Um…don't you think that I sort of…_stick_ _out_ compared to your friends?"

"Stop being so hard on yourself, of course you belong. In fact, I can already tell that you'll make a great addition to the gang."

The teenager cowered slightly, but tried to accept her well-intentioned statement. In the end, she still couldn't.

No, she still _wouldn't._

'_Everyone's so nice to me, acting all friendly and everything. Why can't I take this at face level, where I'm supposed to take it at? Am I so mistrusting, delusional or paranoid of people's intentions that I can't feel good anything anymore?_'

Then the previously-dormant evil little voice in her head surfaced. '_It's because of what __**he**__ said that's making you like this. Don't believe that everyone's like that, he's only one bad person in the world, and he doesn't count for everybody._'

'_Then…maybe I should give these people a chance. Innocent until proven guilty, right?_'

"Actually…" Rinoa's voice faltered a little, "-forget about what I said earlier, I think I will fit in."

The other girl smiled. "That's the spirit. Now lets' find you a spot in class so you'll fit in there too."

"That's a funny way of putting it, but it's probably a good idea anyway. Oh, and before I forget," She dug through her bag and pulled out the loaned gym clothes, "-here's your clothes back. Sorry if they're a little sweaty, I had a fun time trying to follow someone, thinking they'd lead me to class."

Adrienne's eyebrows arched as she accepted the clothes. "Who were you trying to follow, it wasn't Seifer was it?"

"No, but-" Something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. "-but maybe I'd better find a seat soon, people seem to be coming into coming in now."

"Uh… _sure._" she said semi-ironically after noticing the general lack of people. "Talk to Instructor Trepe about your seat, she's over at her desk. It's all assigned seating so I can't really help you any."

"Okay."

As Adrienne took her seat, wherever it was, Rinoa walked over to the teacher's desk. The blonde teacher appeared to be pouring over some paperwork. It didn't take much to get her attention though after an uncertain '_um' _noise on Rinoa's part. The bespectacled blonde looked up immediately.

"Is there something I can help you with?"

"Yes. I'm a new student and I wanted to know where my seat was. I was told they were assigned."

She shuffled a couple of papers around in her hand. "So I assume you're… Rinoa Caraway-Heartilly?"

The teenage girl nodded and the teacher shuffled around some more papers.

"Perfect, I have everything here then. As for your seat, it's the last terminal in the second-last row. Your Garden access number to log in the student network is on your schedule, but if you don't have it, don't hesitate to ask, preferably before class starts."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Rinoa turned around just as a couple of students went past her and sat near the spot she was assigned. She sighed.

'_Hyne, I think my life just got a little more complicated…_'

If her eyes hadn't betrayed her, if she were to sit at her seat in this present moment, Seifer would be behind her, Ivy in front of her, Ryan on her right and the infirmary guy behind her diagonally, occupying the seat on Seifer's right. Not to mention, Adrienne would be nowhere in sight, sitting way over on the other side of the classroom altogether.

Putting on a brave little façade, Rinoa strode over to the other side and went to sit in her seat quietly, hoping that somehow, someway, her presence would go unnoticed by all of those who surrounded her.

This silent hope was already dashed not even a moment later.

There was a paper note taped on her terminal's screen.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Sorry if this chapter seemed a little boring or short to you guys, I simply wanted to give a better sense of the Garden's distinct social issues and how Rinoa's being sucked into it and whatnot, while at the same time, show her own perception on things, the way she tries to adapt and deal a little bit with her own problems as well.

Either way, I hope it worked out somehow,

_-Emerald-Latias_


	5. Chapter IV – Conflict of Interesting Mat

**Author's Notes – **Don't have much to say as of late other than I apologize if I might have confused some people into thinking Squall knocked the girl up in the last chapter, so just for record, it wasn't him and if you happen to be reading this because only you're under the impression he did, well then I'm sorry. God, I never thought I'd be saying that _ever_…

Oh, and before I forget, you guys will probably be surprised by how the last chapter cliffhanger's actually going to turn out. Hehe… But then again, who am I judge what's expected in your heads? Okay, maybe I have a tiny inkling…

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter IV – Conflict of Interesting Matters**

_-_

_I remember feeling low,  
I remember losing hope,  
And I remember all the feelings and the day they stopped,  
We are, we are all innocent._

_**-Our Lady Peace, Innocent.**_

-

Sitting down, she silently drummed her fingers on the terminal's desk. Should she read the note she plucked off the screen or should she _not_ read it? Could it be important, or could it _not_ be important? Questions everywhere, answers nowhere. Or were the answers everywhere and questions nowhere? Hyne, she was even confusing herself now.

Alas, the mystery of the typical teenage dilemma – so much to ponder, yet so much hesitation to battle.

With the note crushed under her palm, Rinoa scantly took note of the hungry eyes everywhere, eyeing her and the note paper-weighted by her hand. She moved her hand ever so slightly to…_oh no,_ the folded piece of paper fell to the floor near her feet. _Wait a minute_, the folds opened and the side with the writing on it faced her eyes. Was this a sign that she should open it?

The spotty royal blue ink seemed to make it harder to resist once the scrap was devoured with her hands and eyes. _So much for willpower,_ she thought to herself. Curiosity had always been her Achilles' heel.

Unfolding it completely, the meager note read,

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Did my friends tell you anything about me when I was gone? I'm kind of worried that they said something mean as payback for the past couple of days. You can write on the blank part of this page and pass it back to me if they did. I'm the person sitting right in front of you. Thanks._

_-Ivy_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa wanted to sigh loudly and ignore the letter's request but found herself unable to do either as she bent down to fish a pen out of her backpack. The poor girl in front of her probably deserved a little compassion today even if it meant telling her a truth she most likely didn't want to read.

As her pen softly glided across the paper's crinkled surface, Rinoa only hoped that she could word this right without causing a catastrophe in the process.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I'm really sorry if this wasn't what you wanted to hear but, they told me a fair amount about what you found out at the doctor's today. Hope you're not angry at me._

_-Rinoa_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

A few moments after she lightly tapped Ivy on the shoulder and passed the note back, the girl in front of her started scribbling like a madman, or a madwoman in this case, and the note came back with a freshly-inked addition on the bottom, smeared by a splotch or two. Rinoa read it cautiously.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Don't worry, I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at them. Thanks for being honest with me – I really, really appreciate it._

_Before I forget, could you do me the world's biggest favor and return the note to me? I'm a little paranoid that my boyfriend will come across this accidentally before I tell him the news. Thanks again. _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Checking her watch, Rinoa presumed that it would be another minute before the class would actually start according to the times on her schedule. Mustering a little audacity, she didn't return the note in its current condition to her. Instead, she wrote something beneath her last request.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I know that you just wanted the note back but, I couldn't help noticing that you seem like you need somebody to talk to. _

_Would you like to do something after school?_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After note had been passed back to her again, a reply came equally as fast. Not because of the speed of her writing like the previous time, but because of the reply's length.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Definitely. I could really use a sympathetic ear and a friend right now. :)_

_Does meeting up at the front gates sound good to you?_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa blotted the used page with a _yes_ and a _meet at gates _on her hand. Then she returned the note.

Just as the bell sounded, she rubbed the side of her face. '_I think I just had the most interesting first day of school that the planet's ever seen and my first official class hasn't even started yet. Knowing my luck, this class will probably be extra boring to make up for interesting parts earlier._'

And for the second time today, she had made another groundless prediction. The beginning of class was only the turning point.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"Class, before we start with the day's work, we have a new student in our midst. Her name is Rinoa Caraway-Heartilly."

Suddenly it was like a rehashed version of the scene at her bus stop, eyes analyzing her, taking her being in, sizing her up, assessing her potential- …Well, maybe not that last one. Regardless of that, she still felt like she was some kind of specimen on a pedestal, waiting to be examined, judged and just about everything that came with teenager-dom. Then another thought hit her as their collective eyes lingered on her unmoving lips. Was she supposed to say something, make a speech, _talk? _There was only one thing she could do to find out for sure.

"Um…_hi?_"

They averted their eyes.

'_I guess I screwed that one up…'_

Taking no heed of her social fumble, the teacher started speaking again and the class resumed.

"Okay, now that I have your attention again, today's period will be entirely devoted to continuing the group work I assigned at the end of class yesterday. I want all of the questions from the sheet completed and handed back to me by the end of the period, no excuses."

Rinoa felt an oddly-euphoric kind of nostalgia when she shot up her hand. Hyne, when was the last time she'd done this?

The instructor caught sight of this immediately. "Yes Rinoa?"

"Um…What am I to do since I don't have a group or know the source material?"

"That's a good question, let me see…" A small moment passed before she answered her. "I think I'll place you in the group of the two _gentlemen _currently sitting behind you. As for the material aspect, seeing as the required section to read is attached to the question page, if you try your best I'm certain that you won't come across many problems."

"Okay." She secretly gulped. "I think that'll work."

Instructor Trepe nodded. "Good. Everyone, go and start working with your respective groups."

As soon as she turned around to face her new partners, her presence seemed produce mixed results, her partner on the left looking at her as if she was nothing more than a speck of dirt, meanwhile her partner on the right appearing pleasantly surprised. _Oh, what a motley bunch we'll be together,_ she pondered ironically.

"Rinoa, I think it would be easier for his highness if you came and sat with us on the other side of the table. Hyne forbid if he has to make an effort to talk to you."

Needless to say, it was Seifer who had talked to her and that the other guy shot him a glare for that remark. Rinoa could already feel the tension as she quietly made her way towards the two teenage boys, and as she silently hoped that she wouldn't have to be their mediator-slash-referee later on. She pulled up a spare chair from on of the vacant seats in the back row and bravely sat herself between them. And surprisingly enough, she also had enough bravery to ask a question.

"So…how are we dividing the-" She glanced at the page in front of her. "-nine questions? Would three each be fair?"

Rinoa heard a snort coming from her right. "If you expect _him_ to do any of the work, you're hopelessly naïve."

When she turned around to face those same glacial eyes of his, she froze up. "Well I assumed that…we'd all…"

"…Assuming won't get you anywhere." he quickly shot back.

Then, Seifer's voice forcibly reverberated behind her. She switched her sights towards him. "Leonhart, stop scaring the girl and just be a team player once. We'll do like she said and take three each. -And despite what you _assume,_ I'm going to the work and answer my questions like everybody else."

Rinoa noticed the momentary trace of confusion linger on his face. "…Whatever."

Finally, she unfroze and looked at both of them. "So…um, should we copy our questions onto our own papers and take turns with the section pages?"

Right after she'd given her suggestion, the initial silence thereafter was broken by a couple of crude ripping noises. After glancing over at Seifer who had nothing to do with it and after a quick check of her clothes' seam, Rinoa realized that it was other guy who was responsible; he'd been carefully ripping the sheets.

He slid some section and question page fragments to both of them. "…Those are your parts."

Rinoa nodded appreciatively as she passed half of the expertly shorn pieces further down to Seifer. "Thank you…um… _oops, I'm sorry_… I don't even know your first name."

'-_And I doubt 'infirmary guy' would be remotely appropriate._' she mused.

"-It's Squall." he answered demurely.

"Okay, then. Thank you _Squall_."

'…_Squall. Was that the name of the guy Natalia confused with Ivy's boyfriend?_'

'_Yeah. That sounds just about right._'

'_Hm. I wonder why she confused him with the boyfriend though. Maybe they look alike or something.'_

Zoning back into the real world, Rinoa realized that she hadn't even started the work at all, just like she realized that Seifer was using non-verbal means of trying to get her attention whereas Squall was completely absorbed in his work.

She tilted her head towards the blond ever-so-slightly.

"…Yes?"

"I think you'd better get a move on your work, you don't want Commander Uptight on your ass about it." he muttered.

"Sorry, I kinda spaced out for a second."

Seifer looked at her funny. "-A second? I'd say a minute. Either way, I think you stunned Squally-boy over there."

Rinoa's face scrunched up with intrigue. "-How so?"

He peered over her head to make sure that the said subject was still in a homework-induced coma. Sure enough, he was.

"Well, if I had to make an educated guess, I'd say that he's never been formally thanked for anything in his pathetic life."

"-_Seifer!_" she whisper-yelled at him.

"_-What?_ I wouldn't be saying it if I knew it was completely unfounded."

"…_So?_ That's mean."

'_Even I think he's cold, but just because I think that doesn't give me permission to literally say slander behind his back._'

"And quite frankly, I don't give a damn. In fact, I think you're the only person who's ever asked him what his name was."

Just as she was about to retort with something, another voice inserted itself within their miniature conversation.

"…If you two are done talking about me, I think it would be wise to start working." the last group member stated offhandedly while hovering over his pages with a pencil, eyes always fixated on the paper. "Otherwise, I think I _will_ go _Commander Uptight_ on both of you."

Without further prompting, Rinoa started working, albeit juggling a couple other things in her mind at the same time.

'_Hm, I think I need to read the first three paragraphs to answer question one-_'

'-_Hyne, that was unexpected. I never would have guessed that he was listening to us the whole time._'

'-_Okay, I think questions one and two should be right but I'd better reread them just in case…_'

'_I wonder if they just don't get along and argue for the sake of arguing or genuinely hate each other. Guess I'll figure that one out sooner or later._'

'_Question three. The social aspects of the first sorceress war were-_'

Nudge. Nudge.

"…Quit it Seifer."

Nudge. Nudge. Nudge.

"Please, I said_…stop?_" She turned to face her partner on her left only to see him with an empty and bewildered look on his face.

"Don't look at me, I didn't do it."

She swivelled to face the other side. "…Were you the one poking me?"

The other teenager shot her a strange look. "No. …Why would I?"

"Sorry, I was only asking. But… if neither of you two poked me, then who could it have been-"

Hazarding a guess, she looked back and managed to reveal the true culprit in the process. And for some reason, the other two turned around as well, almost in synchronized unison.

"Um…_Hiya?_"

The culprit was a severely awkward-looking Ryan, whose general nervous appearance and ping-ponging pupils made it seem as if he thought that Seifer and Squall were going to bite his head off any moment now. Well… if she made a calibrated assumption judging from Seifer's annoyed stare and Squall's irritated glare, she'd be ready wager that he might have been not too far off the mark from what the two guys probably wanted to do to him – minus the literal biting.

"-Oh hi Ryan. Coming to frisk me away to the library again?" she joshed, big smile and all. Somehow it didn't have the calming effect on him like she'd hoped. He was still evidently preoccupied with the two flanking her on both sides.

He let out a nervous laugh. "Nope, not this time. I wanted to know if there was anything I can help you with for the assignment. I'm already done my stuff for the group I'm in and-"

"-She doesn't need your help Casanova." Seifer pointed out haughtily. "If you would have paid attention, you would have noticed that she's practically done her part already."

Rinoa looked around nervously, particularly at her other group partner.

'_I better brush him off nicely before Squall gets a chance to tell him off. Somehow, I doubt that he could handle that if he can barely stand Seifer.'_

Just before she had the chance to form the first syllable in her mouth, it was already too late.

"And even if she needed help," he stated coolly, "-she could have asked either me or Seifer so I suggest you stop bothering us and leave."

Oddly enough, Squall's rough, yet civil tone caught Rinoa by surprise. She'd been expecting him to tear Ryan apart with his usually razor-sharp words. But then again, was it even possible to be mean twenty-four-seven?

Either way, at least Ryan got the message and left to rejoin his group on the other side of the class before it could have gotten ugly between the three of them, word-wise that is. And for that, Rinoa's ears were thankful, meanwhile, her brain focused on something that had been said in reality.

"Hey _um_…you guys… I think I might actually need a little help over here on question three."

Both of her partners looked over at her page, yet none of them said much afterwards.

Rinoa blinked in confusion. "…So _neither_ of you can help me?"

"…Sorry, but I'm useless when it comes to questions that don't have black and white answers." Seifer admitted.

As for Squall, he didn't answer her, he only shrugged.

She sighed in disbelief. "You mean you guys told him off for nothing? Hyne…you're both unbelievable."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

The rest of the period passed by somewhat peacefully, well at least compared to the first half of the class anyway, and they handed in their assignment without fail, thanks to a little help from Ivy who still was in her original seat. Rinoa didn't have the nerve to approach Ryan again after what the other two had said during their mini conflict. It would have been just too humiliating to bear.

In any case, Rinoa was now waiting patiently for that same girl at the front gates. If her watch was accurate, she was already twelve minutes late, not that she was counting or anything, it was just that the three-quarters-empty bus loading zone had started to seem a little creepy and-

"Sorry, I'm late." Ivy apologized. Meanwhile, the duster-clad girl nearly had a heart attack. "Lunch didn't quite agree with me …if you know what I mean."

Still panting a little, Rinoa nodded knowingly. "So… is there anything on your mind?"

A self-depreciating chuckle escaped Ivy's mouth. "You know, this situation's kind of weird. I mean, I barely know you and yet, I feel as if I could talk to you about anything that comes to mind. Now why is that? I've never felt that with any of my other friends right off the bat like this."

She shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe some people can connect with others naturally."

"Hm. You might just be right." They both started walking away from the remaining students and settled on a distant bench further down the pathway. "I mean, the first instant I met you, when Lucy was probably boring you to death, I could sort of tell that you were different from them, not in a bad way or anything, just different. Something I could sort of relate to. …_Wait,_ you're not pregnant too,_ are you?_"

Rinoa sat there blankly for a second.

"Rinoa?"

Suddenly, her voice grew a tad mechanical and zombie-like. "No. No, I'm not."

Ivy sighed in relief. "…_Oh good._ I was worried that you were in the same boat I'm in right now. Hyne, I'd never wish this kind of bad luck upon anybody." She looked over at her. "They… told you about how unlucky I was too,_ right?_"

Rinoa nodded serenely, looking at her feet.

Eventually, her voice became usable again. "So…how do you think you he'll feel once you tell him?"

The other girl looked up at the errant leaves drifting across the sky. "I really don't know. Paul's great with me, very considerate and everything but I have this sneaking suspicion that he'll get depressed or something. I mean, when you plan and plan and plan and the plan accidentally snags somewhere, you can't help but feel responsible for the snag and start blaming yourself for everything."

Rinoa stopped looking at her feet sheepishly and started looking at the autumn sky along with her.

"…Sounds like he's a nice guy. Not like a jerk who'd run away at the first sign of trouble."

Rinoa heard another sigh from the other girl. "That's why it's going to be so hard to tell him. He doesn't deserve to have that kind of guilt on his shoulders, especially since he was such a good sport about everything else. Hyne he even waited patiently for nearly a whole year to do what we did because I wasn't ready, without so much as a complaint or _anything_ and now…because of one stupid biological screw up, he's the one paying. It's like life's trying to make up for lost time."

"What did you mean by 'making up for lost time'?"

"Oh, I guess I forgot to explain myself there. What I meant was that since my life's been relatively boring and nothing's really screwed up for me up until now, I figure that life, karma, cosmic retribution or whatever you want to call it, is returning the favour for all those uneventful years by making me pregnant from my first and only time. Hyne, thing next thing I know, the bad luck will probably keep on coming and I'll be by myself, alone and pregnant."

Rinoa looked at the ground again for a moment. "I understand your point but…what makes you so sure that he's going to leave you? From what you've told me, I don't think that such a nice guy would do that to you just for getting pregnant. I think that he'd probably be supportive if anything."

"…_I hope you're right about that._" Ivy brushed away a tiny sob. "But no matter what happens, at least I'll end up with the cutest baby in the whole wide world."

Rinoa sensed that the conversation was headed towards a more positive direction. "Um…Ivy, I've been meaning to ask earlier but, what does your boyfriend look like? I sort of wanted to know because after you left, Natalia confused his name with someone else's and I was wondering if it was because they looked alike."

"No problem," she replied, wiping the last welled-up tears out of her eyes, "I have a good photo of him in my wallet."

She produced the photo about half a minute later. When she saw the photo, Rinoa made the conclusion that Natalia's mix up must have been an arbitrary one, because Paul looked nothing like Squall Leonhart whatsoever. Whereas Squall had chocolate-brown hair, piercing blue-grey eyes and a quasi-permanent scowl, Paul had light-brown hair, calm pale-green eyes and had a shy and introverted look about him. Not to mention, Squall was of average height and build, while Paul appeared to be on the taller side and a smidge more muscular.

Rinoa smiled unabashedly. "Now I see what you meant about your baby."

For the first time in their conversation, Ivy truly smiled. "I know, Paul's a keeper and I should be lucky to have him. Thanks for talking to me, I feel so much better and I think I might even have the courage to go tell him now."

The other girl's original smile broadened. "…I'm glad that I could help you."

"No, I'm the one who should be glad. You were the only one who actually said something remotely supportive. Hyne, even that note of yours' cheered me up more than anybody else did. All of those other alleged friends of mine were too absorbed into their own things to even give a damn."

"Maybe it hadn't sunk in properly when you told them. Some people need time."

"No, they're always like this. I don't even know why I'm-" Then, something caught her attention in mid-sentence and without much explanation, Ivy got off the bench. "_**-Paul! Is that you over there?**_"

The guy who was lightly jogging towards them yelled back in response, nearly laughing it out. "_**-Who else could it be?**_"

As he came closer, Rinoa mentally deduced that the picture didn't do him justice at all. The indelible smile he had on was just one of the many features that the photograph left out. All of a sudden, before it even registered in her head, Ivy had already started running towards him. Once they finally met up with each other further down the line where the bus loading zone ended, Paul picked her up and twirled her around twice, proceeding to set her down gracefully. Rinoa couldn't help but to watch the unfolding scene with interest even though the couple's voices were subdued to whisper-level due to the sizeable distance between where she was sitting and where they were standing.

"_Hyne, I think I need to do some more exercise, I should have been able to hold you up longer."_

"_Paul, you're not getting weaker, I'm getting heavier."_

"_Ivy, don't be ridiculous, you look the same as you did last month. You're just being too harsh on yourself."_

Rinoa secretly smirked during their pause. '_Looks like he's in for a big surprise now._'

Ivy let out a giggle. _"You're too kind. But I still have to disagree with you– I __**don't**__ look the same as last month."_

Even from Rinoa's viewpoint, she could still discern that Paul looked visibly annoyed. _"Ivy, please don't argue with me about this…You know how I feel when you try and nit-pick about every little aspect of yourself."_

"…_Okay, I'll talk about something else."_ She inched closer to his side and rested her hands playfully on his shoulder. _"You remember that doctor's appointment I had to go to today?"_

Paul smirked. _"How could I forget? Calc and Lit dragged on forever without you there to help me this morning."_

"_Well… they finally figured out why I've been feeling fluey and so run-down for the past couple of weeks." _

"_So what did they say?"_

Rinoa gulped when she saw Paul's face blanch straight after Ivy raised herself onto the tips of her toes and whispered something, presumably _'the news', _into his ear. Maybe she _**was**_ as naïve as Squall claimed she was; believing that Paul would be supportive and mature about this, he _**was**_ a seventeen-year old boy after all. The silent bystander stood stock-still and continued to observe through the gaps between her fingers, waiting to see how this one would be played out.

'_Hyne, this'll all be my fault if he leaves her now. …Please let this turn out okay for her…please._'

"…_You sure?_" he choked out.

"_Well it seems to be that way._" Ivy's shoes nervously pawed at the ground underneath her. "…_Are you mad?_"

"_No…I'm just-_" He staggered a little. "_-This is a lot to take in all at once._"

"_I know. I had the same reaction at the doctor's …although I have to admit that you're __**a lot**__ more composed about this than I was. I was crying the entire time._"

"_That's perfectly understandable Ivy; you've got more to lose than I do. It's your body that's going through this, not mine." _Then his voice became even more morose. _"…All I did was wreck it._"

When he lowered his head, she brought it back up with her hand so that he faced her eye-to-eye.

"_Paul, nobody's to blame for this, we were careful and it was just bad luck, nothing more._"

He moved her guiding hand away. "_If you're saying it like that, are you …planning on keeping it?_"

Ivy's voice faltered a little. "…_It depends on what you want to do. This child's as much yours as it is mine so it wouldn't be fair if you didn't have any say in this. All I ask is that whatever you say is what you actually want and not something you think I want to hear. I don't want to drag you into anything you're not ready for._"

He looked shyly at her, raising his head slowly. "_Well if that's the case…would you consider keeping it?_"

"_If it's what you want, I have no problems with it._"

"_I'm sure it's what I want._" He slowly circled around her back and wrapped his arms around her still-flat waist. "_I have to take responsibility for what I did to you and I can't do that if I take the easy way out by telling you to get rid of it like it was nothing and plague you with 'what ifs' and regrets._"

She looked up at him from under his broad shoulders. "_Taking responsibility for what we did is admirable, but are you ready to be a father at eighteen? I don't want to keep the baby knowing that you might grow to resent me for forcing you to grow up too fast._"

He peered down at her. "_Ivy, it doesn't matter if I'm a father at eighteen, twenty-eight or even thirty-eight. Who's to say that another ten, twenty, or even thirty years is going to make a difference if we love each other as much as we do now? Granted, this happened a little sooner than I would have expected, but it's nothing we can't handle together."_

Ivy wrapped her arms snugly over Paul's, and then she looked in Rinoa's direction and warmly smiled at her for a moment, before directing her attention towards her boyfriend once again. Rinoa caught this and left in the opposing direction, a hint of a smirk now present on her lips. Now she didn't have to wait in uncertainty anymore.

'_I guess…I stand corrected. __**Now**__ I think I just had the most interesting first day of school that the planet's ever seen._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"-_**Rinoa, wait!**_"

She froze. Why was she shouting for her to stop?

She turned around and saw Ivy right in front of her with Paul close behind.

"Sorry for all the yelling but I really wanted you two to meet." Ivy wheezed apologetically. "Paul, I want you to meet Rinoa Caraway-Heartilly. If it wasn't for her talking some sense into me, you wouldn't have known about the baby until I started showing."

In contrast to his open behaviour earlier, now he seemed very self-conscious and withdrawn. The words '_I'm_ _painfully shy'_ could have figuratively been written across his forehead in big, bold neon letters.

"Um… Nice to meet you. Thanks for encouraging Ivy to tell me about her condition, I appreciate it."

Rinoa politely nodded. "…It's nice to meet you too. I hope everything will go well for you two."

He coiled an arm protectively around her stomach and smiled. "I'm sure it will."

"…I'm glad to hear that." The raven-haired girl smiled. "I'd like to stay but I have to go now…my parents are picking me up soon. I'll see you two some other time though."

And with that, she excused herself and left without another sound.

'_I guess Adrienne and her friends misinterpreted Paul's shy and protective nature for being a jerk. Ivy's really lucky to have him, I think that any other guy would have run away bawling, nevermind whole-heartedly accept the pregnancy._'

'_Either way, I'm glad that I didn't cause a huge mess in the end. I don't think I could live with myself if I did…_'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Whoa, I must be on something because I never, _**ever**_ updated this fast before. I think I just might have to pinch myself. …_Or not._ I think I can take my own word for it this time.

Anyways, I hope that the time I did spent on it was enough to keep the same overall quality and your interest (God, when do I ever get to say _**that?**_). And before anyone asks, Ivy's sub-plot in this chapter does serve a point, you just don't know it yet. Hehe. And no, it does _**not**_ mean that Rinoa's pregnant either…in case if I gave you guys the wrong idea once again like the misleading wench I am.

Actually, for this chapter's little song snippet at the beginning, I sort of wanted to use a part of Slide from the Goo Goo Dolls because of Ivy's predicament (if you know the meaning behind the lyrics you'll understand). But seeing as I'd used another song of theirs for the last chapter and the story's supposed to focus on Rinoa, I decided not to.

_Okay…why I put that in, I'll never know. …I must be losing my brain over here. Gah._

_-Emerald-Latias_


	6. Chapter V – Alexis

**Author's Note – **Hi, nothing new to report other than royally screwing up my insanely-fast updating streak. No worries, I'll try to pick it up again. That's what summer is for, right? On another note, I'm surprised at the amount of people who are wondering what direction I'm taking in regards with Squall. Hehe, keep on tuning in and you'll eventually find out!

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter V – Alexis**

_-_

_Truth is a whisper and only a choice,  
Nobody hears above this noise,  
There's always a risk when you try and believe._

_**-Goo Goo Dolls, Truth is a Whisper.**_

-

For the first time in months, Rinoa had a strong, unexplained urge to smile. She wasn't pretending, faking or forcing this smile like she'd done so many times in the past, this occurrence was something earnest, much like the emotions fueling it. She'd found a place to belong, a place to forget her past woes, a place to call her own. Happy and ready to add another week under her belt at Balamb Garden, she waited patiently for the bus to come and take her away.

Then, as if some divine figure had listened to her wishes, the bus chose that moment to come tottering in front of her driveway. Well…according to her watch, it _did_ come by at her scheduled pick-up time. _Aah… the miracle of competence._

Once inside the bus, Rinoa scanned the seats as she passed by them to try and find a friendly face. This process didn't take long since she found Adrienne staring out the window, sitting in the left-hand seat in the third row. Figuring she wouldn't mind, Rinoa sat herself beside her.

"Hi Adrienne."

It took a moment before the other girl turned her head and once she did, Rinoa blinked. Soon, questions raced through her head. Did Adrienne have brown eyes? Didn't she usually have a bunch of earrings on? Why does she look like my identical twin today when she didn't last week? Why is she giving me a funny look now?

She finally opened her mouth. "Um…I think you've confused me with my sister."

Suddenly, this statement miraculously erased the plethora of questions that had piled up inside her brain.

'…_Oh, that explains everything. She's Adrienne and Ryan's older sister Alexis._'

Rinoa snuck in another quick look. '_Wow…I can't believe how much she looks like me. It's almost like looking in a mirror._'

'_-I guess he wasn't referring to Adrienne when he was talking about his sister who looked exactly like me, he must have been referring to Alexis. It all makes sense now._'

Alexis stirred a little. "…I don't mind you sitting here but, if you wanted to sit with my sister, she's two seats behind me."

"No, it's okay. I think I'll stay."

Her doppelganger turned to face the window again and forged another silence between them in the process. In the meantime, Rinoa sat quietly at her end of the seat, not a peep to be heard, knowing all too well what Alexis was implying with her newfound mute-like behavior. Had she not done so much introspection of her own in the past months, she might have taken offense to the other girl's actions, or lack there of, thinking that she was ignoring her because didn't want her around, but since she had, she knew better. Alexis wasn't staying quiet to push her away, she was staying quiet because she technically had no real obligation to say anything to her.

Alexis took a break from looking at the window. "…By any chance are you the new girl in Garden? My sister said she was supposed to look like me."

In spite of her underlying urge to blurt out a '…_Huh?_' very loudly, Rinoa nodded politely. "Yes, I am. My name's Rinoa."

She meekly smiled. "…I thought I heard Ryan repeat a name like that a bit too frequently for my liking. If I were you, I'd avoid him like the plague."

"Funny you should mention that," Rinoa added matter-of-factly, "because Adrienne said the _exact_ same thing on Friday, only she told me to bring a Blaster Edge to fend him off."

"That…doesn't surprise me."

"I guess you could say that sisters think alike, huh?"

"…Yeah, I suppose you could."

Before she could edge in another comment however, her companion decided to face the window again. This time, Rinoa honestly wondered if Alexis didn't want to talk to her. After the next stop, she hastily made the decision to change seats and sit with Adrienne. When she asked to sit down, the other brunette didn't seem surprised in the least.

"So I take it my sister didn't talk to you much, did she?"

Rinoa sat down. "No, other than asking me if I was the new girl, she didn't speak much."

"Aah, that's typical of Alexis to do something like that. She's not the talker of the family, that's for sure. –Speaking of which, did you bring the Blaster Edge like I suggested?"

A couple of chuckles escaped her lips. "No, but that's another thing that came up too."

Adrienne raised an eyebrow.

"…I guess I'd better explain that one. What I meant was that she also warned me against your brother once I told her my name. She told me that it was a name she thought she'd heard him repeat a lot at your house."

"Well if Alexis said it, I would take her advice. Then again, the fact that Ryan's an infatuated dork is a little self-evident."

"Hey, don't be so mean. He's not _that_ bad, he's just …a little quirky."

Right after, Adrienne patted her on the shoulder.

"Oh Rinoa…" she said with an exaggerated sigh. "You've got to learn to stop being so nice to everyone. You're going to end up with more pity dates than you have weekends if you don't."

Now it was Rinoa's turn to raise her eyebrows. "When is being nice such a bad thing?"

"-Okay, okay, then forget I said it, that probably came out wrong anyway. So, how was your weekend?"

"Oh, it was good. I went on a picnic and it didn't rain for once and the food wasn't half bad either. The watermelon we had was so juicy. You should have tasted it."

'-_Not to mention that watermelon was just about the only thing I could actually stomach._'

"Sounds like you enjoyed yourself. All I did was study like crazy for today's Calculus test with Alexis. Thank God she had her notes or else I would have been royally screwed. Now I think I can do limits and logarithmic functions in my sleep."

Rinoa smiled. "I hope you do well. But just out of curiosity, if your sister's in the same class, how old is she? Did she stay for an extra year?"

Adrienne shook her head. "This'll sound a little creepy but, we're all technically the same age. She's four days shy of being a year older than me and Ryan."

"Oh, so does that mean you're all born in the same year?"

"Oddly enough, we are. Her birthday is January 4th and mine and my brother's is December 31st. Mind you, the both of us were supposed to be born in February. Personally, I think that having my birthday on New Year's Eve is a much better deal than being born on Valentine's Day."

"Hee. That _does_ sound better like a better deal. Mine's March 3rd and I swear that I've never had a birthday where it hasn't rained. But while we're still on the topic of birthdays, does anyone from the group have a birthday coming up?"

"Not really. Nat's is February 13th, Ivy and Eden's are in May, Ivy's on the 1st and Eden's on the 27th, and Lucy's is September 15th."

"At least Ivy can be thankful that she'll be eighteen when she's due sometime in June."

Right after the words had left her mouth, Rinoa caught a subtle flicker in Adrienne's expression before she added a comment of her own.

"More importantly, she'll be able to get most of her school stuff out of the way without having to drop out."

"That's another good point."

"Rinoa," The particular look made another reappearance just as her voice lowered, "I'd hate to sound mean or anything but, how did know about Ivy's plans? The first I've heard of anything that she was going to do was when she came to my house on Sunday and told me and my sister."

"Actually…I was the one who _sort of_ convinced her to tell her boyfriend last Monday."

The curiosity in her aquamarine eyes changed into confusion. "Um, if you don't mind me asking, could you explain more on how you managed to do that? I mean…wasn't that the first day you were here?"

Rinoa's face flushed a little. "Before class started, she passed me a note to ask me something and after writing back and forth a couple of times, I asked if she wanted to talk. So to make a long story short, when school was done, we talked for awhile and when she saw her boyfriend not too far away, she ran over to him and managed to tell him about 'the news'."

"Okay…but did he take it well? Ivy didn't tell me about that part."

"Once the shock registered, it sounded like he was okay with it…well I assume he is since he wanted her to keep it. Either way, I'm really glad this is going to work out for them."

"Yeah, I'm glad too. Hyne only knows that I don't need anymore drama this year."

Rinoa's ears perked up at this.

'…_Drama?_'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

As Rinoa came to realize during her first week at Balamb Garden, first period Art class was a double-edged sword of sorts. There were only five other people in the class, the teacher gave infinite freedom in regards to their choice of artistic medium, but managed to compensate for this lack of restrictions by enforcing an specific deadlines for each piece of work to be completed. Most of which, as she came to assume, judging by the constant pleas and begs of her fellow classmates for extensions, were grossly unfair and far too short. So needless to say, during this brief period of time, Rinoa learned to keep her projects short and sweet, but packed with a lot of meaning. …Or meaning that the teacher always seemed to dig up, regardless of her say in the matter.

Maneuvering through the minuscule and messy paint-splattered room, Rinoa eventually found her place in the far corner, an angled desk strewn with a hodge-podge of art supplies. A second later and she was then joined by Eden, who sat herself down on the seat to her right, taking out a few things from her knapsack - she was the only person that Rinoa sort of knew in this class. Adrienne and the rest of the group were in their respective math classes of varying levels, Seifer, as far as she knew was in some sort of SeeD-level weaponry class, and Ryan, well… it was probably best if she didn't know where he was.

Just as the bell rang, Rinoa plucked out a single photograph from the depths of her own backpack and placed it on the corner of her desk. Then, while the teacher proceeded to chew out some students in the front row for Hyne-knows-what, she put a fresh piece of blank paper in front her, grabbed a fistful of pencils from her bag and pushed the photograph closer to the edge of the paper.

Today's attempt was going to be a sketch of the photo, rendering the vivid colours on the picture into black and white simplicity on her paper while hoping that she'd convey her idea of stark contrast in the process. This went along with the wishful notion that by simplifying the colour scheme, she would be able to turn the beauty that the elaborate colouring provided for the angel into something raw, fleshing out the darker details the portrait held.

Without further hesitation, Rinoa started sketching away methodically in a freehand manner, glancing at the photo, and then drawing its correspondent counterpart on her page. The cycle only broke when the pencil's tip loudly snapped midway through when she pressed hard to make a heavier outline of the angel's left eye quite a while later, breaking her out of her trance.

She blew away the tiny splinters of wood and graphite particles off the drawing and reached down for the pencil sharpener in her bag. After doing so however, Rinoa couldn't help but notice the fact that the clock at the front of the class was indicating that she had already spent three-quarters of the class drawing two-thirds of her sketch and that Eden was shamelessly peering over at the aforementioned drawing.

Well, that _was_ the case until the pixie-like blonde's big green eyes caught on to her looking at her looking.

…And then the apologies came flying out. _-That, _and Eden's face going deep red. Rinoa felt sorry for the girl reacting like she did, most likely thinking that she was going to bite her head off. It was something she could relate to.

"…You don't have to apologize, I don't mind. Not at all." Rinoa reassured. Right at that moment, she could immediately see the tension leave the other girl's face.

"Oh, okay…I'll have to remember that. You see, I'm used to people getting all defensive when I look over at their projects, convinced that I'm only trying to steal their ideas. But the truth is I'm not. I only look when I see something interesting and…that sort of happens a lot in here."

"I know what you mean. There's a lot of nice stuff coming from this class." Then, she lowered her tone. "-_Despite what the teacher says._"

Eden smiled. "I definitely agree on that point. So…is that drawing of yours a fallen angel or something? It's really good."

"Um…sort of. I just took this photo I had here and used it for a black and white sketch."

The blonde took the photograph from Rinoa's desk and did an once-over of both pieces of art. Her face seemed to scrunch up with scrutiny.

"…I would have never guessed that you used this photo for that sketch, and I don't mean that in a bad way. You seem to have put in your own style to change what you get from looking at it. In the photo, you get a stereotypical angel, filled with hope, happiness and whatnot. But from the way you're drawing it without colour; I'm getting the practically opposite ideas."

Rinoa exhaled in relief. "…I think I'll be able to rest easy knowing that Mr. Illione will get the meaning of this one if you got it just like that."

Eden's face scrunched up again. "-I wouldn't say that Rinoa. Knowing that Mr. Illione finds the meanings from the much smaller things in every piece of art he sees, I'd say that he would be more likely to pick up on the fact that the angel in the sketch looks more like you than the angel in the original."

'_Huh, it looks like me? Hold on…_'

'_Crap, it does! …Way to go Rinoa. -Now everyone's going think you're some kind of a weirdo._'

"-Well I hope he doesn't because I didn't mean to do that."

"No need to get all huffed up, I believe you. People do things by accident, it happens every day. Today I took my brother's backpack by mistake and I gave it back to him on the bus, no big deal."

"…Sorry, I didn't mean to sound so high-strung."

"It's okay, stuff happens."

A faint, trying smile crept on Rinoa's lips. "Speaking of stuff, you wanna hear a good one?"

Eden shrugged. "Sure, why not."

"This morning, when I was looking for a seat, I thought I saw Adrienne so I sat down beside her but, as it turned out, it was her older sister sitting there instead. The strangest part was that she could have passed for my identical twin."

"That's strange. I thought you _were_ related to them when she introduced you last week. Ever since the school year started, Adrienne doesn't make a point of talking to anyone outside the group or her family anymore."

'_I wonder if this has any connection to when she was talking about earlier…_'

"Oh, I didn't know th-"

"-_**Ahem.**_"

'…_Huh? Who's that?_'

Rinoa and Eden simultaneously whipped their heads around, only to see the source of the noise.

'_**Oh.**_'

The foreign voice belonged to none other than their silver-haired teacher, Mr. Illione, glaring at them menacingly with his stern grey eyes, arms crossed across his narrow body. Just then, Rinoa smartly assumed that he wanted them to stop talking and continue working again.

"Ladies, if you would be so kind as to stop the gossiping and start working again, I think it would help those who cannot paint, chisel or sculpt because they are greatly distracted by your voices. Thank you."

'…_Hyne, it_ s_ucks to be right sometimes._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After barely surviving the remainder of Art class, Rinoa dully marched into her Language and Literature class, affectionately dubbed as 'Lit' by the Garden students. Eden had parted ways quite a while ago for another class but, before leaving, had said something before leaving that had effectively stuck itself in her brain like gum on a hot sidewalk.

Needless to say, this figurative _gum_ of sorts was starting to bug her to death. Partly because she wanted to flatly ignore it because it sounded like mere speculation, and partly because the typical seventeen-year old teenage girl portion of her brain secretly wanted to know more. Whether Rinoa wanted to admit it or not, it was a real tug-o-war in her head.

'_Whoa! Where did the walk to my seat go? I could have sworn I was in the hallway a second ago…_'

Despite her initial shock, it didn't seem to lessen the additional jolt of unexpected company in the seats beside her. Shock number one came in the form of Seifer on her left, and shock number two was Ryan on her right. Rightfully, neither of them were supposed to be sitting beside her, she was supposed to be sandwiched between Lucy and Natalia.

Peering towards her right, she thought a question was in order.

"Hey, um, did they…happen to change the assigned seating without telling me?"

Ryan looked over, smile on his face. "The assigned seating changes every week in this class. Instructor Kolp does that just so people get _too_ comfortable with the people they're seated with."

"In other words, she doesn't want any more _couples _to…_form_ in the class, right?"

"-Bingo. Kolp's notorious for stuff like that. Way back when, she wanted to impose a ban on student relationships because she thought that they caused too many distractions in the classroom. They tried it at first, but in the long run, they dropped it because it was causing more problems than it solved."

"What kind of problems?"

Seifer turned his head and he cut in. "-One word. Bathrooms."

Rinoa turned a faint shade of green. "Ew…don't say anymore."

The blond shrugged. "_-What?_ It's the truth. What do you want me to say?_ We had a kitten infestation?_"

"Well you could have said, '_You don't want to know._' or something like that."

Seifer shook his head. "No. That would only want to make you want to know _more_."

"Okay, okay, point taken. So could either of you tell me where the seating plan is?"

As soon as the words left her mouth, Ryan motioned towards the back. "–Right by the door."

"Thanks."

Bringing her things with her, Rinoa calmly walked towards the door and found the slip of paper tacked on the wall beside it, indicating where she'd now be sitting. Upon first glance, she immediately noticed that her name wasn't located anywhere near her original seat. But after a second perusal, she smiled and started walking to her new seat.

…More like she took a two-step stroll if anything.

As she sat herself down comfortably, her two new seat companions stirred slightly.

"Well, this _sure_ is a pleasant surprise."

Rinoa momentarily stopped putting books on her terminal and smiled at the speaker on her right.

"…Yeah. For a while there, I thought there was some kind of conspiracy to keep us on opposite sides of the classroom."

"I guess this screws up that theory, huh?"

"-Definitively."

With that, the two girls resumed what they were doing prior to her arrival. Placing a couple of additional things on her desk didn't hinder Rinoa's on-going thoughts however.

'_It'll be nice to sit by Adrienne for a change._'

'…_But then there's what Eden said. Now it's going to bug me even more because she's right there, I won't be able to think straight._'

'-_Well then maybe you should ask, to get it out of your system, even if it __**does**__ sound like gossip._'

She leaned towards her right again. "Hey…Adrienne?"

The other girl looked back. "Yeah?"

"…Just out of curiosity…_do you know Seifer?_"

Adrienne arched her eyebrows. "_Yeah_…but why do you ask?"

"I…um…sorta heard _something._"

"-From _who?_"

"…Eden."

"Oh, that explains it."

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. "…Is there something I don't know here?"

"Eden's a nice person but…" She shifted her eyes a little. "…Sometimes she can't differentiate fact from fiction, or in this case, speculation."

"I apologize for asking then. I wasn't sure if it was only speculation either, I was really on the fence for this one."

"No, it's okay." Suddenly, Adrienne's head darted towards the front of the classroom. "We'd better stop now. Looks like Instructor Kolp just walked in."

Rinoa nodded while absentmindedly looking to her left. Paul seemed to be intently scribbling away at something.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"-For the remainder of the class, start reading chapter six through eight. If you don't finish during class, the rest has to be finished as homework. _Understand?_"

"…_Yes Instructor Kolp."_ the entire class droned in response.

"Good. Start now, no excuses."

Without further prompting, Rinoa did as instructed and grabbed the book by its spine and cracked it open at the appropriate page. Unconsciously, a smile crept on her lips while she was reading. Up until now, she would have never guessed that she'd could actually excel in a subject, let alone enjoy it at the same time.

The subconscious smile she had on grew even larger. '_I guess that all those years of bedtime stories finally paid off._'

Nudge. Nudge.

'…_Figures.'_

In a largely uncharacteristic display of annoyance, Rinoa made her displeasure known with a loud sigh. Getting interrupted while reading was one of the very few pet peeves she happened to have and this one was tied for the worst offender; the other one was obviously when people tried to force-feed their beliefs onto her.

Wedging her index finger between the pages as a make-shift bookmark, she looked through the corners of both eyes to figure out who the poker was. Judging by the facial expressions alone, it was clearly Adrienne as her eyes seemed to hold a sort of genuine nervous energy to them. Then again, as far as she knew, the girl could have been over-caffeinated.

"…_You poked?_" she joshed at whisper-level.

Adrienne nodded and smiled. "_Yes, that was me. …Could I ask you something?_"

Rinoa opened her book again, flitted through a couple of pages and eyed them intently, pretending to read.

"_Sure, but ask me in note-form… just to be safe._"

The other girl nodded again. The note was soon scribbled and passed to her.

_What was it that Eden said to you? I'm kind of curious._

Nearly as fast, Rinoa wrote a response with the scrap of paper that she had hidden in the book.

_She said that you don't really talk to many people since the school year started and that she thinks that Seifer's behind it somehow. She also mentioned something about noticing that you act differently towards him now and something else, but I can't remember how she phrased it exactly._

A record-breaking seven seconds had passed before Rinoa received another response. Oddly enough, Adrienne must have been pressing a little harder on the ballpoint pen she was using because the ink appeared darker and the page itself seemed to have a few holes in it.

_**Other than going to school together, I don't associate with him. The reason you might have seen me look a little on edge when he was around was because a while ago, he used to have a sort of 'relationship' with my sister that didn't end well and she's never been the same person since. And I hate him for that. As for the 'not talking to many people' thing, I don't know where Eden gets it from. **_

_**Anyways, after you're done, don't reply to this. I'm going to try to read those chapters now. :)**_

After reading the note, Rinoa couldn't help but look at the head of the class where Seifer was slouched over sleeping at his terminal, wondering if he honestly was the 'bad guy' everyone seemed to be branding him. Despite of his rough exterior, the blond didn't seem like the type to cower from, not judging from her experiences with him at least. Or was there something she didn't know about him that the others did?

'_No,' _she thought to herself in defiance, '-_I won't fall into that trap. I'm going to stick with my principles and listen to what I think and not anybody else. He hasn't done anything to prove what they've said about him yet anyway. I have no right or reason to use people's prejudices against him.'_

'_Still… If what I see in him and what others see are two completely different things, then why do I have this nagging suspicion that the difference means more than meets the eye?'_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments **– Sorry for the ridiculously long wait, between distractions _–cough–_ _Pink December –cough–_ _Infirmary Fiction –cough–_ and my slight case of Writer's Block, it's really taken a toll on me. Hope it hasn't affected the chapter's quality though. _'Cause that'd suck._

Either way, if it has or hasn't, I'd really appreciate some comments and/or feedback from you guys. _God only knows I need more of that sometimes…_

But enough of my laments, so…until the next one,

_-Emerald-Latias _


	7. Chapter VI – The Hazard of Association

**Author's Notes – **Well, contrary to Breaking Free, this chapter will begin to touch upon the turning point as mentioned in the plot summary so that the proverbial ball starts rolling. Hopefully this'll mean that the story won't be as slow-paced as the other one. Anyways, happy reading!

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter VI – The Hazard of Association**

_  
__-_

_Firefly, could you shine your light?  
Now I've learned your ways,  
'Cause they're just like mine,  
Now I'm justified as I fall in line,  
And it's hard to try when you're open wide._

_**-Breaking Benjamin, Firefly.**_

-

_Saturday, October 30__th__ –_

_As of late, I'm starting to notice how strange life is sometimes. I mean, who would have thought that over an entire year's worth of pain and suffering could have virtually disappeared in about a month? Or that making a good bunch of friends could make such a big difference? Surely I wouldn't have seen that coming, or at least the old me wouldn't have seen that coming. So much has happened in the past while that I'm probably going to have to take the time and make a habit to write all the big things down, whether it's good and bad, seeing as my memory's not what it used to be. Not to mention the mini mountain of pre-Halloween homework isn't helping any. Okay… I might have exaggerated a little there._

_First things first, I have to say that, compared to the person who wrote that first entry nearly a month ago, I think that I've come a long way. I mean, before, when I first got out of Obel Lake, I still wasn't usual self and now… I'm getting there. I'm proud to say that I have a lot more confidence and I know that I'm not a human blimp. _

_-Well, sometimes I still think that if I look at a mirror at a bad angle, or if I had a really bad day, but what's important is that I don't think that all of the time anymore like I used to. Effort counts, right?_

_Anyways… school-wise I'm doing well, or at least better than I thought. I'm surviving Mr. Illione's reign of short-leashed tyranny with a solid B and Instructor Kolp's reign of…um…people switching seats so they don't comfy with each other…with an A surprisingly. I'm starting to think they messed up my grade somewhere though because I never get A's. But in any case, I feel bad for Paul and Ivy. They never seem to get any breaks in that class. The only time they were seated together was the week that had just gone by and they got chewed out for the dumbest things. I mean, since when was holding hands under a desk a federal offence? Talk about being unfairly punished for simply being in love. At least Paul can thank Hyne that she didn't catch him writing down possible baby names that one Monday a couple of weeks ago. The poor guy would have been mortified…and possibly heckled to death._

_Speaking of which, yesterday during lunch, Ivy told me and Adrienne that they'd actually picked the possible names already. If it's a boy, they're going to name him Ethan, and if it's a girl, Claire. I still can't believe how organized they both are with everything though. If I was in Ivy's position, I'd be a nervous wreck for the entire nine months. Then again, I don't know what's __**actually**__ going on inside their heads, nor am I in any place to make assumptions on how I'd react._

_-But enough of that, I think I got a little side-tracked here._

…_I guess that'll teach me to write in pen without any way to erase what I've already written…other than pulling out the pages and rewriting the entire entry or without making evil-looking swirly black clouds._

_As for my afternoon classes, they're a bit of a challenge, so to speak. Despite what Adrienne said on my first day, Phys Ed's a pain in the butt (literally) and the teacher's a bit of a jerk. No matter how hard I try, I swear that he's got an automatic C waiting for me. I don't care if it supposedly 'builds character', I can't lift crates, boxes or heavy cube-shaped objects for the life of me – I don't have the upper body strength to lug stuff around the Garden. I guess Seifer was right all along, third period is just glorified grunt work. It's a shame I can't drop it though._

_Fourth's an okay class subject-wise but the seating arrangement kind of screws the lessons up. There's always a lot of senseless chattering going on and it never stops for a second. Poor Instructor Trepe, she tries so hard to quiet the class down and nothing seems to work. I guess Seifer's back row antics aren't helping any, I almost feel guilty for finding them funny – even more so when I'm under the sneaking suspicion that he's doing it to make me laugh. _

_On the same note, I've been bumping into him a lot outside class. Now whether it's really odd coincidences or something else, I don't know. All I know is that he seems to enjoy our frequent exchanges just as much as I do. He still hasn't convinced me that I'll eventually loathe the Garden though. Hee, that'll be an on-going joke, I swear… But all joking aside, other than his occasional 'Seifer' moments, he's a great person to have as a friend; it's a shame that he doesn't really get along with anyone besides me. _

…_Oh well, on to other things. _

_Seeing as Halloween's tomorrow and I'm going to a costume party tonight, I'm really, really excited and maybe just a teeny bit nervous. I haven't been to a party in ages and to be honest, it'll be a nice change of pace- Oops, I just heard the doorbell, Adrienne and the rest of them must be here, gotta stop writing! _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Hearing the frantic chime of the doorbell, Rinoa hastily shoved the notebook under her bed, raced out of her room, sharply turned left and hopped down the small set of stairs. Running past the dining room, which seamlessly became the living room and eventually the adjoined entranceway, she opened the door and let Adrienne, Lucy and Natalia in. All of them were wielding large, bulky bags in tow, which undoubtedly carried their costumes.

"Hi Rinoa." Lucy said once they all entered the house. She handed her one of the bags. "We managed to find another fairy costume for you so you'll match with the rest of us tonight."

"-Thanks. You guys can just follow me upstairs and change into your costumes in either the bathroom, the empty guest room or in my room. I'll just wait until whoever is done first and change in there later."

Unlike Lucy and Natalia, Adrienne had already been to her house previously, so she started walking upstairs without any aid whatsoever. "Sounds like a plan. I'm going to use the bathroom."

Rinoa nodded and guided the other two upstairs.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

There was fervent knocking on the bathroom door.

"-Almost done in there Rin?"

As she fruitlessly tried to pull down the top part of the costume, she yelled back. "_-Almost, I- urg- just can't seem to fix the – ugh- I'm having trouble with the top part, it's too short._"

"-How short?" It was Adrienne's voice resonating on the other side.

"-The bottom part with all the glittery thingies ends about an inch above my belly button. Are you sure you guys gave me the right bag when you bought everyone's costumes?"

"No, I distinctly remember handing Lucy yours. Can I come in?"

Rinoa opened the door and saw Adrienne donning the same sparkly skirt ending at mid-calf, feathery wings attached to her back and the identical glittery spaghetti-strap tank top with the feathery bottom which…seemed to show even more midriff than she was at the moment. But aside from the technical differences due to their respective heights, the only true difference was the outfit she wore was scarlet red and not royal blue like hers.

Adrienne approached her and adjusted the wings, paying the actual problem no heed. "…No, I think you have it on all right."

"…I didn't realize that it was going to go up that high. I'm not used to wearing this kind of-"

"-Don't worry, you look awesome in it."

Rinoa turned away as her cheeks burned fiercely. "Um…thanks."

"No prob. I guess now that everyone's done changing we can do all the make-up, body glitter and whatnot."

"Sure…but shouldn't we be waiting for Eden and Ivy? Aren't they supposed to be coming too?"

"-They're both going directly to the party." Natalia answered as she came into the bathroom with a bag of cosmetics in her hand, wearing a magenta version of the costume. She casually tossed the bag onto the counter. "When we gave Ivy her costume earlier today, she tried it on and freaked out. Must have realized that she wasn't ultra stick-thin anymore because of Junior. Eden's trying to coax her into wearing it as we speak."

"-It'll be a shame if she doesn't wear it though." Lucy shyly poked her head through the door, decked out in the tangerine-orange variation of the outfit. "The colour looked great on her."

After hearing this, Rinoa posed the question in her head. "…Is Ivy's costume exactly like ours, just in a different colour?"

Adrienne nodded. "Yes. When I bought all of our costumes at the store, I made sure that they were all the same kind, just different in colours. Ivy's is a like a lighter shade of violet and Eden's is emerald green."

"Oh, so she didn't ask for something with more coverage when you showed us the costumes you were going to get?"

She shook her head. "No, she did."

"…So were there problems with finding a fairy costume with more coverage at the store?"

"No, there were plenty of costumes that had more coverage."

Now Rinoa was confused. '_……Okay._'

"So you didn't buy one because…"

"-She would have stuck out." Adrienne asserted boldly. "Ever since we've all known each other, we've always worn matching costumes and nearly everybody knows this. So, if you think about it, and I told Ivy this too, if she were to wear a different costume, it would draw more attention than it would avoid, especially since she still doesn't look pregnant."

Although she wasn't fully convinced, the raven-haired girl nodded half-heartedly. "…I guess that makes sense in a way."

Adrienne shifted her attentions towards the carelessly-laid cosmetics bag on the counter, reached over to open it and picked out a few choice containers. With several things crammed in her one hand, she made her way back to her again.

The taller teenager's mouth curved into devious smirk and smiled like it hurt. "So…do you want to be my first victim?"

Although the comment was most-likely intended to be a light-hearted joke, her expression and the way it was delivered almost suggested something more, something Rinoa couldn't quite put her finger on.

Ignoring such tribulation, she responded immediately, with a smirk of her own now visible. "Sure, why not."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Sitting in the backseat of Lucy's car, Rinoa looked out of the night scenery unfolding in front of her eyes from the right-hand window. Nothing was remotely interesting though, it was a typically-suburban view – identical houses with generic trees planted in the lawn, either before or past the sidewalk, cars parked in driveways and occasionally along the side of the road, an occasional person loitering about and the odd cat prowling the area.

Breaking away from the monotony for a fraction of a second, she sneaked a glance between the front seats. The car's digital clock revealed that the current time happened to be precisely nine 'o clock. Rinoa shivered a little.

'_This is going to be one cold night.'_ she thought to herself, peering down at the goosebumps on her partially-exposed tummy. '_Or maybe I'll luck out and it'll be warm…wherever this party is._'

"-How much longer until we'll be there Luce?"

Lucy, who was driving, slowed down considerably for a car that'd just pulled out of a driveway.

"Not long Adrienne." she replied to the teenager in the passenger's seat. "See that corner house further down the street with all of the cars parked everywhere? That's where it is."

"So that's your friend Selphie's house?"

"-The very one." Roughly a minute later and Lucy had already found a place to park the car. "_And…_we're here."

Once parked, Rinoa unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door. Standing on the moist and dewy grass, she took a quick look at the house before her.

'_Oh Hyne…_'

A modestly-sized raised bungalow made of red-orange bricks, the single-car garage on the right of the entrance door was opened and filled to the brim with a long table running along the back wall and a colourful array of various costume-wearing teenagers, most of them either holding red plastic cups or handfuls of food in their hands. And although she couldn't quite tell from where she was standing, Rinoa astutely guessed that the back table was most-likely littered with plastic cups, bowls of various snacks and bottles of booze on it. Music loudly reverberated everywhere.

Out of nowhere, Natalia waved her hand it front of her face, bringing her out of her stupor.

"Rinoa, are you coming to this party or are you just going to watch it go by?"

She blinked. "Sorry, my mind was elsewhere."

Nat shot her an incredulous look. "Sure…I'll be in the house, whether you come is up to you."

'_That was mean._'

Shortly after she left and shortly after she realized that neither Adrienne nor Lucy were near the car anymore, Rinoa precariously started walking towards the house herself. While she was still ambling across the lawn, Rinoa noticed that there was a constant influx of people going into and out of the house. She gulped. So many people, yet none she knew or even knew of. It was almost like-

'_No,_' Rinoa firmly reiterated inside her head as she strode on, '_-this isn't like that last party I went with him, it won't be like that last party. I'm going meet new people and have fun._'

She made it past the front stoop and opened the door. If it was even possible, the music seemed to reverberate even louder. More people went past her to go outside.

'_Sink or swim Rinoa, sink or swim. You can do this._'

Standing in the relatively small entranceway, her options of where to go were very simple. She could go down the stairs to the right to what looked like a big, open basement, filled with people dancing away to the music, chatting and generally socializing, climb the stairs to the left and go upstairs, where it seemed be to a lot quieter, or open the door to her right, which probably connected to the adjoined garage, and risk hitting someone on the other side. After one fleeting thought, she took the stairs to her left.

Following the brief stair climb, Rinoa aimlessly meandered just to get a good feel of the upstairs' layout. In the dim lighting, she wandered past a small door and saw a kitchen to her right, empty save for a bunch of cans sparsely discarded here and there and a person in a half-undone Chocobo costume passed out on the linoleum floor.

Swiveling to her left, Rinoa saw the dining room and the living room a little further down to the left of the dining room's large table set, distinguished by the soft glow of the muted television in the left corner by the window, couch and end tables along the far wall, coffee table in the middle and a chair or two by the dividing wall that separated higher-up living room from the lower entranceway and stairs. And sure enough, there were a plenty of people idly slumped on the couches and chairs, and surprisingly enough, there was also a person in a full-body Moogle suit spread-eagled on the coffee table. Cupping a hand over her mouth, Rinoa giggled a little.

'_Hee…I guess I stumbled upon the resting spot for the thoroughly wasted. Still, I don't think it'll hurt me to check the hallway in between the dining room and kitchen. And if it's just more resting spots for passed out people, I'll go downstairs afterwards._'

Leisurely taking her time to check out the darker hallway, the first door on her right had a paper tacked on to it, reading '_Bathroom_'. Not needing to go, Rinoa continued her quiet stroll. A lot sooner than she expected, the hallway ended after a couple more steps on her part. Three doors marked the end of it, one on the right, one on the left and one directly in the center, all three unmarked.

'…_I wonder if they're all bedrooms._'

Carefully pressing an ear against the door on the right, Rinoa didn't hear any talking or anything. Figuring it wasn't worth going in, she went on to another door. The same result produced for the left-hand door so she put her ear by the last door and- she suddenly jolted twenty feet backwards. Unlike the other doors, Rinoa had heard some background noise, and it wasn't necessarily of the _talking_ variety like she'd hoped.

Needless to say, after that little episode, she decided to head downstairs, however when she was nearing the stairway-

"Rinoa…is that you up there?"

Peering down at the person from the top of the stairs, Rinoa instantly recognized who was calling her after faintly seeing the violet garb of a fairy costume. The raven-haired girl went down a few steps just as the other girl went up a few. Once they'd both visually confirmed who the other party was, they went back up to the top of the stairs and away from of the stream of people who were either exiting or entering the house.

"Hey, how are you holding up Ivy?"

The violet-clad teenager managed a tired smile and brushed aside a loose tendril of hair. "Have you ever been to a party where you're under the sneaking suspicion that you were only invited out of pity? I feel like that now. Everyone's ditched me already and I feel so out of place."

"We could stick together if you want; I'm not entirely comfortable here either. I haven't even been inside this house for five minutes and I've nearly walked in on someone going at it already."

Ivy's tired smile turned into an overly amused one. "That's funny, but you shouldn't stick around just for me. Go have fun."

"No, I really don't min_d-_"

Apparently, Ivy would have none of it and cut her off. "-Trust me on this one, go downstairs and have fun Rinoa. –And take this with you."

Rinoa curiously brought the red plastic cup the other girl had forced upon her up to her lips and took a small sip.

"-Why did you give me a cooler?"

"To help you relax." When Rinoa cast her a knowing look, she elaborated some more. "…And because somebody gave it to me when I was downstairs. I couldn't get rid of it without anyone seeing down there so that's why I was going upstairs. But since you're here, I figured you needed it more than the sink did."

Ivy's last words brought a smile to her lips. "So are you sure you want me to go downstairs?"

She nodded her head. "Definitively. Now go finish that drink and have fun for me. I've got to practice being responsible anyways."

Going down a step, Rinoa looked around to make sure that nobody was nearby before adding one last thing.

"-Ivy?"

"Yes?"

Rinoa leaned closer to be able to whisper what she was going to say. "_-Are you sure you want to stay up here? If they gave you a drink they obviously don't think you're…that way. You look too nice in your costume to hide yourself like this."_

Even in the darkness, Ivy's face burned a visible bright red as she inadvertently put a hand over the uncovered part of her still relatively-flat stomach.

"Thank you for the compliments but, I'm a little tired actually."

"Oh…okay. I understand."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"Hey Rin, long time no see, having fun yet?"

Rinoa giggled.

"Just between us fairies, I'm already having a blast just knowing that we have the best costumes around."

Adrienne had an ear-to-ear smirk plastered on her face. "Glad to see you've changed your mind. So did you see anybody you'd want to waste the rest of your weekend on in the crowd?"

"_-Hey!_" She objected indignantly with a bit of a chuckle. "I thought we agreed that we wouldn't talk about that topic, what's gotten into you?"

The crimson fairy lifted the plastic cup in her hand and shook it to emphasize its emptiness.

"-A few of these." she deadpanned.

Rinoa giggled some more. "Is this your way of telling me you're drunk?"

"No, I'm not drunk; I just have a bit of a buzz." She pointed to the other end of the crowded basement. "Now if you wanted to see drunk, look over there."

The pair of fairies put their back-and-forth banter on pause to look at Natalia and Eden dancing sloppily with each other on top of the very few tables in the spacious area. After the novelty of their shenanigans wore off, Rinoa picked up where they had left off.

"Hee…I think Lucy will have a hard time getting them back in the car."

"…_Nah, _she's dealt with a lot worse before. _Trust me_, that girl _know_s the occupational hazards of being the designated driver, but now's not the time to get into that… So, how much have you drank so far? Not a lot I bet."

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. "-What makes you say that?"

She started ticking off the reasons with the fingers on her right hand. "One, you didn't answer my question, two, you got all defensive about it, three, you thought I was drunk, four, you got defensive again when I said that I thought you didn't drink much, five, you're still listening to me telling you why I think you're sober, six– Oh wait, I don't have six fingers…"

Rinoa laughed. "I don't care whether you say you aren't, you _are_ drunk Adrienne."

"This isn't about me Rin, it's about _you_. …And I'm gonna say it again, how much have you drunk?"

'_She won't give up, will she?_'

"Just this one thing Ivy gave m-"

"_Aha…I thought so!_ Go get yourself something from the garage and don't come back unless you've got something in your cup that'll loosen you up. I want you to have fun."

"But-"

"-No buts, you'll thank me later." she insisted, now dragging her towards the nearby stairway. "Go grab something in the garage and if there's nothing there, just ask Selphie to find you something. She's wearing this really big Carbuncle costume."

"_Okay, okay,_ you don't have to drag me, I'll go."

And just like that, Rinoa left to go past the smaller throng of people situated near the base of the stairs. Squeezing through the crowd deftly, she eventually managed to climb the stairs to the entranceway. But instead of going through the door to and into the garage, Rinoa started climbing the other set of stairs to see if Ivy was still upstairs. Sure enough, it didn't take along before she spotted her sitting at the top.

"_Hey_…I thought I told you to go have fun." she said weakly, stifling a small yawn at the same time.

Rinoa sat herself down beside her. "I know, but now I'm starting to wonder who thought that getting wasted equated fun in the first place because everywhere I go, everybody's drunk. I think I might have missed the memo somewhere."

Ivy smiled wryly. "You've never been drunk before, have you?"

"No, I have, but …" Rinoa hesitated for a moment. "-to be honest, it doesn't take much to get me drunk and with this many people here, I don't want anyone taking advantage of that because……I can never remember a single thing the morning after. So if I drink, I lose and if I'm sober, I'm bored."

"Hm."

She sheepishly grimaced and showed her the empty cup from earlier. "Adrienne even told me to not come back downstairs until I filled this up with something. I still can't believe I got bullied by a drunken girl."

Ivy took the cup from her hand and absent-mindedly eyed it. "Well you're not the first Rinoa; we've all had it done to us at one time or another. She's a very bold drunk, that girl." She gave the cup back. "…But if you're not comfortable with drinking anything else, my suggestion would be to either put something non-alcoholic in your cup and act drunk, or avoid the basement altogether."

"I don't think that first idea will go over too well, she'd probably inspect my cup or something. My best bet is avoiding the basement."

"So why are you up here then? Other than me, everyone who's up here is passed out- well, maybe not the people you almost walked in on a while ago."

"…I guess I wanted to talk to someone to who was still level-headed."

"I'm not level-headed Rinoa, just sober. Trust me, if I was level-headed, I wouldn't be at this party right now."

"Do you have a way to get back home?"

"Yes, I called Paul. He's coming to pick me up any minute now."

"That's good."

"You should have heard him on the phone though, it was priceless."

"-What did he say?"

"No, no, it's what he didn't say that was funny. He wanted to know what kind of costume I was wearing in case he had to spot me in a crowd and once I described it to him, the line went silent for about twenty seconds. I think I shocked him as much as I shocked myself."

Rinoa smirked. "Do I have to repeat what I said earlier to cheer you up?"

"No, I know that it looks nice, but looking nice doesn't help paranoia."

When the girl clad in blue had a perplexed look on her face, Ivy elaborated furthermore without additional prompting.

"You know how it is when you think or you know that you've gained weight and you worry twice as much about other people noticing it too? _Well_, for someone like me who _can't_ fix this by dieting or exercising, it gets to be kind of worrisome because you don't know at what point everybody will start to notice."

Rinoa nodded but stayed silent, keeping her thoughts to herself as she continued.

"-I worry because I know that the minute people catch wind of this, they won't treat me the same anymore. Look at what it did to my friends already; most of them don't even want to be around me anymore. They act like they do but they don't, I can tell." She let out a load-bearing sigh. "…Sorry if I started to ramble there, it's just that it's been weighing on my mind for a while now."

"No, I completely understand. If the roles were switched, I think I'd be talking about the same things, mind you; I wouldn't have the figure to pull off that costume. I'd be in a Tonberry costume, poking the guy who did this to me with the costume's plastic knife repeatedly as I was talking."

Ivy chuckled a little. "…Thank you, I feel better."

"No pr-"

The sound of loud and clunky footsteps coming from the other set of stairs interrupted Rinoa in mid-sentence, as did the loud creak of the front door opening. Scurrying down the steps in curiosity, both girls quickly deduced that Paul was responsible for the door's loud creak and a very plastered Natalia who was accountable for the loud and clunky footsteps.

"…You ready to go?" Paul quickly asked.

Ivy nodded. "Yeah, but hold on one sec-" She shifted her attention towards Rinoa and whispered. "_You wouldn't mind a little watch duty, would you?_"

Before Rinoa could answer, the magenta-wearing teenager took it upon herself to fill the silence and stumble closer to Paul.

"-_­­Gonna take 'er with you, huh?_" She slurred heavily, bluntly poking him square in the chest with her index finger at the same time. Meanwhile, Paul subtly tried to move away from her with his mouth clenched firmly. But unfortunately for him, she still persisted. "_…I bet you wished you didn't knock 'er up, eh Paul? Or should I call you Squall? …You're like the same guy now I think._"

"-Natalia, you've had too much to drink."

"_No Paul-_" she slurred once again, "_I yam fine, thank you very much! You're the one who's had too much to __**do**__ if you know what I mean._"

Clearly getting irritated, Paul set her on the steps to sit down.

"-Rinoa could you please watch her? I really need to get Ivy home."

Rinoa nodded.

"Thanks."

The couple exited the house and left her to baby-sit the thoroughly-sauced teenager. Question marks now roamed around inside her head. Why did Nat slip up twice with that particular name? Did it honestly mean anything, or was she just bad with names?

Regardless, it didn't look like she'd be getting any answers to those questions tonight.

When she felt a couple of tugs on her skirt, Rinoa looked down.

"_Hey, 'inoa?_"

"Um, yes?"

"_They gotta bathroom 'round here?_"

'_Oh dear…_'

"Yeah, they do. You want me to show you?"

"…_Yeah._"

"Need help getting up?"

Nat shook her head wildly. "_Nope, I'm m'okay._"

Surprisingly enough, she was more-or-less fine to walk up the stairs in her drunken state, the only thing that Rinoa had to do was put a hand behind her for the occasional wobble.

"_You know 'inoa, everyone I like messes up._"

Rinoa arched an eyebrow at this comment as they finally made it up the steps.

"-You mean Ivy and Paul?"

"_No, I'm not talkin' 'bout girls, I'm talkin' 'bout boys I used to like._"

"…So, you mean Paul?"

"_Yeah, Paul and this guy named Squall. I think…I think you know 'im._"

Rinoa's jaw dropped figuratively. "So…does that mean what Lucy said about a month ago was true?"

"_If I say yes, you won't tell anybody, 'kay?_"

"I won't tell."

"_Goood. I don't like people knowing that kind of stuff 'bout me._"

"So is that why you keep on comparing them to each other?"

"_Yep, 'cause they sure don't __**look**__ like another!_"

Rinoa stifled a small laugh as she guided her to the bathroom. '_You're right about that one Nat._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

Rinoa reached for the door and opened it despite the fact that Natalia was still puking her guts out into the porcelain fixture. This had been going on for several minutes and her naturally-patient nature wore thin, past the point of caring about who saw what. Besides, it wasn't like Natalia would remember this the next day and quite frankly; the stench was starting to become more than overbearing in the confined area, even with the fan running full blast.

Once the door had opened, Rinoa took notice of the knocker's appearance straightaway. In his knight costume, the brown-haired guy looked faintly familiar in a way, like a casual acquaintance that could have been in one of her classes.

He looked past her at the doorway. "Is she …going to be okay?"

Rinoa looked back and sighed. Apparently, Natalia had stopped retching long enough to pass out beside the toilet.

"I think so," Rinoa answered uncertainly. "-but I'll probably have to put her on a couch."

"-Need help moving her?"

"I'd really appreciate it you could."

The mystery knight went past her and crouched down on Nat's left. He turned his head back. "If you take the other side and put her arm over your shoulders, we should be able to bring her over to a couch."

Wordlessly, she glided over to her right side and did what he told her to do. In a collaborated effort, they eventually transposed her to a nearby couch in the living room with ease.

"Thanks for the help." Rinoa beamed. "You really knew what you were talking about."

"Think nothing of it; I had a buddy in the same situation earlier and someone helped me move him. I'm just returning the favour." He paused for a moment. "By any chance, did you mention your name earlier?"

"No, but it's Rinoa. _-You?_"

"Tristan."

"I think I've heard that name somewhere. Do you have Instructor Kolp at second?"

"…Yeah."

"I guess that solves that mystery."

"-I'll say. Now I know why your name sounded so familiar too. You're the girl who always gets the highest score on the chapter quizzes."

"Please," Her face went beet-red. "We're at a party, don't talk about school."

"…Okay, okay." A hint of an amused smirk now graced his features. "So other than our passed out friend over here, do you know anyone else at this party?"

"Well I don't if you know them but I know Adrienne Alts, Eden Marshden, Lucy Spencer and Ivy Wickerstrom."

"Hm, I've known most of them since middle school. –So do you hang around with them?"

"Yes. They were the first people I befriended when I came to Balamb Garden at the beginning of October."

He gave her a disbelieving look. "-Oh, could have sworn I've seen your face since last year. Where were you before?"

Rinoa felt a large pang in her stomach. "_-Timber._" she responded mechanically. "I used to go to school in Timber."

"Nope, can't say that I've been there."

'-_And I can't say that I have either._'

"So," he continued, "-are you like your friends at all?"

She smirked a little. "-I'm getting there. I used to be really shy at first but they've kind of changed all that. Trust me; I wouldn't be wearing this get-up otherwise. We're all wearing the same costume in different colours."

"Yeah, I thought I noticed something like that. The colour's nice. …I'd say something else about it looking good on you but I'd be afraid you'd take it the wrong way."

Rinoa's smirk broadened. "Well you're in luck because I wasn't offended. And for the record, your costume's nice too."

"_Thanks…_ -Listen, you want to get out of here and get some fresh air?"

She nodded. "Sure, some fresh air sounds good right about now."

"Alright, let's go."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Don't you guys just love it when I leave you hanging with all these questions inside your head? Heehee, I knew you wouldn't, but I'm so evil that I can get away with it!_** Muahaha!**_ _Aah, who am I kidding…_

Anywho, I apologize for not updating this a couple of days sooner, I couldn't quite figure out how to wrap it up where I wanted it to after Rinoa and Ivy's second conversation, not to mention trying to write a drunk person is kind of challenging too…and I probably didn't get it right anyway. …Oh well, it's longer than I expected so there you go.

_-Emerald-Latias_


	8. Chapter VII – Dual Delusion

**Author's Notes – **Well, hopefully this'll contain the actual turning point for the story that the prior chapter had built upon. I think it I'll be able to, but…I never really know seeing as I write the top part of the author's notes, meaning this section right here, before the chapter's even begun to be written. Either way, I'll shut up now and get on with the story.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter VII – Dual Delusion**

_-_

_Everyone here, knows everyone here is thinking about somebody else,  
It's best if we all keep it under our heads,  
I couldn't tell, if anyone here was feeling the way I do,  
But I'm lonely now and I don't know how,  
To get it back to good._

–_**Matchbox Twenty, Back 2 Good.**_

_-_

_  
Knock! Knock!_

Zipping down the steps, Rinoa was trying her best to make a mad dash to the door.

'_I'm coming…_'

_Knock! Knock!_

She was now zooming past the dining room – and then the living room. '_Hyne, is this some kind of twisted and cruel punishment for letting myself abandon my post for one teensy second to go the upstairs bathroom on Halloween night? God, their costumes better be adorable._'

Her hand was now on the handle. '_Ha! Made it._'

Opening the door, three cherub-cheeked pre-schoolers sang the chorus of '_Trick or treat!_' as they extended their pillowcases, awaiting their bounty of chocolaty, sugar-encrusted, or salty treats of epic teeth-rotting proportions. And with a simple dip of the hand into her candy bowl, Rinoa grabbed enough to make sure that she'd supply all of them with a couple of pieces each.

"Lets see here… _Three_ candies for the cute little Cactuar."

"_-Thanks!_" Before Rinoa could utter a simple _'You're welcome'_, the little boy had already scampered off to the next house.

"-_Three_ candies for the pretty pink Mog."

"_Thank you very much ma'am._"

This time the child didn't run off before she could say it. "You're _very _welcome."

When the little girl nodded and left, Rinoa turned to give the last costumed child his candy.

"Last but not least-" She abruptly stopped all actions and left her sentence hanging for a good moment or two. The brown-haired boy had started looking at her funny. "Um, sorry about that, I just…really like your knight costume." she conjured. "-Here you go, three pieces of candy."

The boy nodded and ran to catch up to the other two. When Rinoa shut the door, she leaned against it for support as the entranceway and all of her world started to spin right in front of her eyes. The support was fleeting when there was another series of loud knocks on the door and her left ear was sent reeling from the amplified reverberations.

Gripping the door's handle for dear life, she opened it slowly, hoping to get over this sudden onslaught of dizziness and nausea without toppling over or puking on the poor kid on the other side of the door.

"Trick or treat."

"…Aren't you a little too _**old**_ for trick or treating?"

"Surprisingly enough, you're the first person who's asked me that."

Rinoa rolled her eyes. "I bet this is the only house you came to Adrienne. I see no costume or treat bag and or pillowcase in sight."

The other girl smiled. "Wow, you've got an eye for details, that's for sure." She riposted wryly. "Can I come in?"

She nodded and opened the door wider, feeling much better than seconds prior. "Sure, I haven't been getting too many kids coming at the door lately, mind you, the ones who do have _…impeccable _timing."

Adrienne came through the door and sat down on the ivory-hued couch on the far-wall. Rinoa shut the door and sat down beside her.

"So…um, you feeling okay today after yesterday's party?"

When Adrienne looked at her a little funny, akin to the way she'd reacted after her dress-code fiasco the first time she'd met her on the bus, the teenager mentally scolded herself. Even after all this time and all of the baby steps towards her former self, she still couldn't initiate a conversation nowhere near as well as she used to.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Had a bit of a headache in the morning, but that's just about it. Nat and Eden on the other hand…Ooh, I spoke to them earlier today and let's just say that I don't envy them."

"I know. I can only imagine the hangover they must have today after being super-drunk last night."

"That reminds me, did you ever come down after I told you to get yourself another drink? I don't seem to remember you seeing you downstairs after you left."

"Oh…that. Once I went up, I was talking to Ivy for a little bit and kept on getting side-tracked to come back down."

The other girl raised an eyebrow suggestively. "…_Side-tracked,_ huh?"

Despite the strong, sudden lurch in her stomach, Rinoa found the tenacity to correct her friend.

"_Hey…_don't you even start thinking that Adrienne." she countered weakly, straining to add a smirk to make the comment appear more light-hearted than her current ability to speak would allow. "The reason I got side-tracked was because I had to babysit our dear friend Nat while she was paying tribute to the porcelain god."

Even after her explanation, Adrienne still had this tiny smirk on her face.

"…Fair enough. So how did you manage to get home? When we were leaving with Lucy, I didn't see you in the car anywhere."

"_I-_"

_Knock! Knock!_

'_Saved by the bell, or in this case, knock.'_

"-Hold on a sec."

After a short hop and skip to the entranceway, a plunge of a hand into the candy bowl and a quick twist of the knob, Rinoa gave the Shiva her treats with an earnest smile and send-off. And with the slightest motion of her hand, the door closed. Then she looked at her currently-sitting friend.

"You should have seen that girl's costume Adrienne," she motioned with her right hand pointing to the large open window on her left-hand side, "-she was dressed up as Shiva wearing skin-tight pale-blue outfit with a lot of complicated hand-made detailing on it, she practically looked identical to the real thing in our textbooks."

Her tiny smirk grew. "…Looks like someone here likes Halloween a little _too_ much for their own good."

"-And what's so wrong with liking a nice costume – or Halloween for that matter? It's not everyday where you can parade around in a costume and get candy from strangers no questions asked. It's an all-round awesome concept."

"_Right, _if you're like… _eight._" she drawled sarcastically. "I'm going to take a stab here and guess that you miss trick-or-treating."

Covering her heart with her hand, the teenager replied in her best angelic voice, "_-With all my heart and soul._"

They both had a small laugh about it until Rinoa sat back down on the couch and went back to the previous subject.

"-To answer your earlier question, I got a ride from my older cousin. I wasn't feeling the greatest so I had her take me home."

"…So I take it you had some more to drink?"

"No, I… I think it was watching Nat puke that did me in."

"-Or the smell." the other girl added light-heartedly.

Rinoa smirked. "-That too."

"Oh well, there's always next time to get you hammered."

She rolled her eyes indignantly. "And at what party am I allegedly going to get '_hammered_' at?"

"Depends. If anyone's throwing a bash, it'll be then, but if no one is, it'll be at my birthday party on New Year's Eve."

"You are one persistent girl, Adrienne, I'll give you that."

"That, I am. But you have to understand that I'm doing this for your own good."

"And why does getting hammered count as doing something for my own good?" she countered half-jokingly.

"Because beneath this shy exterior, I know there's an outgoing and free-spirited girl inside there that's dying to let her hair down and see the light of day."

"And…I need alcohol for that?" Rinoa replied bemusedly. "I think I'd rather try making an honest effort while sober."

'-_And look what that an honest effort brought me last night. I can't believe I'm saying this…_'

Adrienne looked at her with a sort of serious quality in her eyes. "You mean that?"

She nodded nervously, still shocked by the staggering amount of lies and hypocrisy that lied within her words in actions.

"-That's great that you're working on your shyness. Trust me, from someone who's been there and done that, when you get rid of your shyness it's like a whole bunch of locked doors opening at once, you can handle things like parties and other social scenes a lot more easily."

Rinoa nodded politely once again. Maybe conquering this built-up shyness wouldn't be such a bad thing after all. Until the Obel Lake incident, she'd been an extroverted girl and things like parties and random get-togethers _did_ seem a whole lot easier to attend and have fun at. _But then again…_

"-_Rinoa, are you listening?_"

"Oh sorry, I zoned out for a moment there. What was it that you were saying?"

"I was asking about what Nat did once she went upstairs. I heard that she caused a little _trouble_ before you had to babysit her in the bathroom according to Ivy when I visited her earlier today."

Rinoa couldn't help but smirk. "Did Ivy give you the full details or just the basics?"

"Basics. All I know is that she had quite a mouthful to say to Paul."

"Well, to put it in short, Nat came up to him when he just came inside to bring Ivy home and practically asked him if he wished he hadn't gotten her pregnant. Not to mention she mixed his name up with that other guy's again and said that they were practically the same person now or something."

"-Squall you mean?"

She nodded. "The very one."

"Well, that doesn't surprise me."

In spite of knowing the actual reason why Natalia had a rather odd tendency of interchanging their names, Rinoa could resist indulging Adrienne by following up with a, "Why?". Maybe there was more to it than the drunken girl had admitted to that night.

"That's simple. She used to like both of them before she eventually found out that both crushes were unrequited."

_Or not._

"Yeah, that's what she was saying. Well, that and they'd both screwed up; she didn't elaborate in what way though."

'_Maybe I am closer to my old self than I thought. I just voiced my curiosity without a second thought._'

"Well, Paul's case is easy to figure out, Squall on the other hand; I don't think I'd be able to guess. I've shared a lot of classes with him and all I know is that he keeps to himself and doesn't talk much."

"I'd hate to be the one to burst your bubble Adrienne, but I think anyone could have figured that out within five seconds of meeting him. Trust me; I had the distinct honour of bumping into him twice and having him as an assignment partner on my first official day at the Garden."

"That's an impressive track record you've got there Rin, you might have heard him talk more than most of us hear in half a year." she added wryly, "-and if he was the one you were following to find Gym class that day, I think I'll die laughing."

When all Rinoa could do was smile sheepishly at her comment, the other teenager proceeded to stifle a laugh.

"-You've got to be kidding me…" she choked.

"Nope, can't say that I am. But if it makes you feel any better… I thought I was doing a good job until he started leading me to the library, where he …kind of told me off for following him."

After failing to quiet a small string of half-muffled laughter, Adrienne finally found the strength, not to mention the air, to reply. "_Rinoa, that…was …priceless."_ Then, she fully recovered from the lack of air entering her lungs. "…You getting told off in a library has got to be the biggest oxymorons I've heard in my life."

"He wasn't yelling though."

"Still…who goes to a library for that? …Ah forget about it, I don't think I'll ever understand what goes through a teenage guy's brain."

"…_I'll say._" Rinoa mumbled with a small involuntary tinge of hurt in her inflection. It was only the moment after when she caught this difference. "So-" she started in a louder tone, trying to quickly change the subject, "how bad are Eden and Nat really feeling at the moment? Would they still kill us if we flashed a flashlight in their eyes?"

Adrienne reprised her smirk. "If it was physically possible, they'd kill us five times each."

"That bad, huh?"

"Yeah."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Sunday, November 21th__ –_

_These past three weeks have been extremely rough on me but I'm surviving. Things are starting to look up again like they did before that Halloween party. Come to think of it, was that the last time I wrote in this thing? Oh yeah, it was. Creepy. It's almost like I have a biological clock (alarm? timer?) that's telling me to write roughly every three weeks. Well if that's the case, I might as well write in 'Sunday, December 12th' right after I finished this entry. Hehe, wouldn't that be something? Nevermind, my future self probably won't find this very amusing or interesting. Onto to more serious matters…_

_This past Friday, I had my first follow-up appointment with Dr. Marnelle, and to put it in short… I don't think she was very happy with me. Compared to the weight I was at when I left Obel Lake, I lost eleven pounds. No matter how hard I tried telling her about the heavy exercise they make me do in Gym class and the amount of walking I have to do compared to when I was still in the in-patient program, she still didn't buy it. Probably for a good reason too, because I was lying the entire time. Well…not so much lying but stretching it a little. If…I didn't do what I did, I probably would have still lost a bit weight because of those things at Garden, although not as much. _

_-Either way, it's probably for the best that she thinks that I was lying to cover a minor relapse than what actually caused the weight loss. She probably couldn't look me in the eye if she knew, or worse, pity me. Hyne…I still can't believe the mess I caused that night._

_For the past couple of weeks, this has been weighing on my mind and I…think I'm ready to write about it even though I'm still not going to tell anyone this. Along with my long stay at Obel Lake, this incident will remain a secret that nobody else will know if I can help it._

_Well…the sad truth about all this is that unlike Obel Lake…I had the power to avoid this altogether. After I had left the party that night with Tristan, it was like I was on a sort of natural high of sorts. I mean; to be thought of as pretty by a nice and good-looking guy like him was overwhelming to say the least. And for the first time, I believed the words spoken out loud and the euphoria that came over me numbed some of the rationality I had before. _

_But in spite of this, the actions that came out of this wasn't simply because he was telling me things I wanted hear or anything like that, it was mostly because I longed for something more, to rid myself of the loneliness I've carried and hid for so long, something even friendship couldn't repair. And after talking to him for a couple of hours as we walked on this beach beside a nearby park, I found out that he was like me – another lost soul. From what he'd said, a while back, his girlfriend of two years had moved away to Trabia and over time, the distance killed the relationship. At this point I felt bad for him; the now-evident pain he was saddled with was something I could identify with instantly and somewhere along the line, I'd slipped up and told him about my jerk of an ex-boyfriend. Commiserating with one another, something clicked among the similar voids we shared. The only thing was that the way we tried erasing our collective voids that night ruined any possibility of having a real relationship with each other. _

_That small tentative kiss he gave me shouldn't have led to anything more, but …I let it happen. When our lips finally parted after a couple kisses that developed from the first one, he broke away and told me that we should stop before we'd regret our actions in the morning, but my better judgement was failing me and the need to fill that emotional gap was taking over at that point. So when I answered his plea, I replied by saying that I wouldn't regret it in the morning and after several moments' worth of hesitation on his part, he finally gave into his loneliness on the cool beach sands._

_After all was said and done, it…it didn't have to be morning for the regret to sink in. For me, all it took was one look into his aquamarine eyes the moment after and for him, all it took was one look into my brown eyes. The shock of reality hit us and we instantly knew that what we thought would work didn't and all it did was amplify the fact that we'd used each other mutually. Knowing this, I apologized for the whole mess and in turn, he apologized back to me and we went our separate ways after promising to pretend this never happened at all. _

_Truth be told, it wasn't until Halloween night when I saw that little boy wearing a similar knight costume that I started panicking, wondering if his story was just a big lie or if he got the wrong impression by my attempt at being social, the costume or …anything, it didn't really matter at that point. I practically worried myself so sick I couldn't stomach anything bigger than a soda cracker for days even though I knew, I just knew he hadn't lied to me that night when he passed me a small, yet genuine, note asking if I was okay when we were seated together on Monday at second. But no matter how often I kept on telling myself that guys who only wanted to get some wouldn't write notes like that, look so guilty or even offer to start over and be my friend, my insecurities kept my doubts fuelled, plaguing me during every waking moment. Being that simple 'Okay' in his note always seemed to be far beyond my grasp. _

_So…I guess I can't avoid this anymore, can't stall any longer by using fancy adjectives, sentences or anything really…so here it goes. A week ago, I was shopping with Ivy to help her pick out some gender-neutral clothes for her baby in this big department store. After I found a couple of outfits that she liked along with some she'd picked herself, she gave me this sympathetic look and said something that sounded a little weird at first. The whole conversation went like this –_

"_I know this may be tough, but you shouldn't avoid the doctor even if you don't want to admit you're sick Rinoa. These things do happen whether you acknowledge it or not, you know."_

_Giving her the clothes I had picked out, I remembered saying, "I have no idea what you mean Ivy, it was only that one week after Halloween where I was feeling sick."_

_Then, she put them back in my arms. "It's okay, you can have them."_

_At this point, I was completely confused. "So…you want me to put these back?"_

"_No, I gave them to you in case if you wanted to buy them …for yourself."_

_I blinked. "I'd be happy to buy these for you as a gift, but I don't think I'd need these for myself for a long, long time."_

_She sighed. "I was hoping to be discreet about this in such a public place but…you might be in the same boat I'm in."_

_That's when the odd things she'd been saying finally made sense in my head._

"…_W-what makes you say that?"_

"_You've been looking very pale as of late and you look so nervous all the time and... it's reminding me far too much of myself before I knew. I'm worried."_

"_So...I've always been on the pale side, besides, don't you have to –do- something for that to happen?"_

"_-Well…have you?"_

"…_O-only once."_

"_You should know that once is all that it takes Rinoa."_

_I started sobbing – the walls of denial finally broke down. "…Oh dear Hyne."_

_At this point, I recalled having a comforting hand on my back. "Don't cry… you don't know for sure. I have a leftover pregnancy test in my purse you could take."_

_Looking up at her, the last words I remembered telling her before taking her test was, "Thanks…"_

_When I did take the test a little later on in the store's bathroom, as the stick was developing, I felt so embarrassed by the fact I'd let my past come and haunt me again, not the whole ordeal with Obel Lake, but the one with my ex-boyfriend – the whole reason I had a hole in my heart in the first place, the whole reason I chose to be stupid and tried to patch it with another innocent who also had a gaping hole in his heart too, entangling him in the mess. _

_Moments before the test showed any colour, I thought about how I was starting to get know Tristan after all that awkwardness had subsided past the first week of November. Awkwardness that was bound to show up if I had to tell him I was carrying his child and that we'd have a decision to make, depending on the stick's colour, awkwardness that the poor guy didn't deserve._

_A little later, I came out of the washroom stall and went directly to Ivy, who'd been standing by the sinks, and gave her a sort of half-hug with my one arm. According to the test, I wasn't._

_But then my heart stopped. She told me that I hadn't given the test enough time to properly develop. _

_While I was anxiously waiting a few extra minutes, my mind was racing through the situation. If the test changed and it turned out positive, my parents would most likely want me to keep it and that would mean that the baby would be hypothetically born in late July or early August, the father of that said child would be someone I'd barely know, he/she would be born out of loneliness, not love, and all of this stupid mess would have been all my fault-_

"_Rinoa, we have a problem."_

_Her words rang in my ears and my stomach was in knots. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to throw up. Not a good reaction whatsoever._

"_-The test is supposed to be blue for a negative and pink for positive, and yours turned out purple."_

_Barely finding my voice at that point, I rasped, "…Should I just buy another test or book a doctor's appointment?"_

"_You'd better make an appointment to be safe."_

_As it turned out, after I'd managed to secretly get an appointment and went to it last Tuesday, after an opening came up when somebody made a last-minute cancelation, they ran the necessary tests and the doctor found out once and for all that I wasn't expecting. _

…_But I used to be._

_I'd miscarried because of my dramatic weight loss brought on by my severe lack of appetite during the past few weeks. _

_I had killed a life without even knowing it._

_After hearing that from the doctor, no amount of food could pass through my lips through the next few days leading up to the Obel Lake appointment. No matter how anybody could have looked at it, I screwed up big time and only got off from facing the consequences in the worst possible way. This was my grieving process, I didn't know any other method to cope; I didn't have the luxury of talking to someone. I didn't even have the courage to tell Ivy, all I told her was the technical 'no' I had received from the doctor. Burdening her with the details of my past wasn't something I wanted to do, nor did I want her to start thinking about the possibility of miscarrying herself, seeing as she was a week shy of three months mark and had barely begun showing._

_Nobody would ever understand the pain of being a worthless screw up who couldn't do anything right._

_Regardless, the worst part from all of this was last Wednesday, when I had to go on the sidelines and sit down for a little while in Gym after having a major dizzy spell, on the verge of fainting. When Tristan came to check on me just to see if I was okay, I couldn't hold it in any longer, I had to let him know, I had to tell him about my doctor's appointment and that I had miscarried his child while being careful to omit certain details. _

_Needless to say, his expression flickered between relieved and sad, but most of all, confused. That was apparent the very moment he couldn't seem to form a coherent question without filling it with awkward pauses and rephrasing what he meant every two seconds. Either way, this news effectively strained what little chance we had at a normal friendship to down to non-existent; he hadn't talked to me since. The last I heard about him through the grapevine was that he was already in the process of transferring to another school. I didn't blame him in the least. Maybe it was better this way._

_In any case, I'm going to have to put this behind me, and try to start over from scratch again, hopefully this time I'll have the common sense to keep my past in the past and not let it interfere with my future. I don't want to have a close call like that ever again, nor do I want to drag anyone down with me._

_My problems will be my own burden. -Nobody else's. _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Quietly setting down the pen onto the nightstand, Rinoa carefully tucked her notebook under her bed and shut off her light. Maybe now she'll be able to fall into dreamless sleep before she'd have to get up for school the next morning.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Whoa, I went in a totally different direction than I thought - completely different from what I envisioned at the start even. In fact, I got the idea to go with this while I was writing after not being satisfied with what I originally planned out. I guess that the turning point will have to be slated for the next chapter if possible.

Either way, I hope you guys still liked this despite the more mature contents and the longer wait. I've been working my butt off every day this past week, so that kind of hampered things a little. Oh well, some things can't be helped.

_-Emerald-Latias_


	9. Chapter VIII – Strange Luck

**Author's Notes – **Well I'm glad that nobody was offended (or wrote that they were) from the mature content from Chapter VII and I'm getting rather amused by the amount of people wondering about Squall. Don't worry; he'll make another appearance in the future, I just won't say when. Hehe. I am so mean... Anyways, without further adieu-

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter VIII – Strange Luck**

_-_

_And the shadow of the day,  
Will embrace the world in grey,  
And the sun will set for you._

_**-Linkin Park, Shadow of the Day.**_

-

_Sunday, December 12__th__ –_

_I guess my weird knack for predicting things is starting to creep myself out so much that it's not even funny anymore. I mean, who in their right mind could predict three pop quizzes in a row? Every time I casually joke about it to the person beside me, guess what happens? I end up being right. Go figure. I'm surprised no one is after my blood for that. Or maybe, just maybe, I could use this skill in reverse and it could work to my benefit, where if I don't say anything, I'll never get another pop quiz in my life. Oh, that'd be nice... Either way, I'd better not tell Ivy what I personally think the sex of her baby is. Knowing my luck, she'd actually end up with what I'd guessed and she'd kick me for ruining the surprise for her. Wait...now I can't remember, did she want to know the gender or not? Hm, maybe I'll have to ask her sometime and if she did want to know, I'll tell her my guess just for fun. _

_Gee, when did I become Rinoa the Fortune Teller all of a sudden? Did I mistakenly drink a glass of magical orange juice instead of the regular stuff and it gave me special powers? Err...I think my imagination is getting out of hand again. I'd better stop before I start predicting silly things like I'm going to sleepwalk and eat all of the soap in the bathroom, have a picnic at night, sprout angel wings out of my back or join a resistance movement because I can. Aah! Must. Stop. Randomness. Now.._

_Okay, now for some un-random things. (un-random? Great, now I'm making words up. Gah.)_

_So...as far as things are going right now, I'm doing better. I'm starting to be able to stomach things again and I've regained some of the weight I've lost from...last month's ordeal. I think I'm about halfway back to what I used to be. Personally, I don't think I'll be able to get back up to the exact weight because of all the stuff I have to do in the Garden, but this'll be a happy medium for now. I'm not going to overstuff myself just to keep up appearances; I'm eating normally, so that's all that matters. Being a few pounds lighter won't kill me._

_But even though I've been doing better in general, some are doing worse and I feel bad for staying on the sidelines and not being able to do anything. When Ivy had told me about how she was paranoid about the moment where people would start to treat her differently once they'd take notice of her growing bump at that party, I understood perfectly about where she was coming from when she said that she was worried about people noticing the weight gain, but not the part about people treating her differently. Maybe it's because I've only known her this way, or maybe it's because of my personality but, seeing the change in people's attitudes first-hand is absolutely sickening. _

_When the word first got around, whenever I was hanging around Ivy at the Garden, I'd always catch the odd look or point in her direction from random groups of students, following by the occasional whisper to one another, almost as if they thought she was some kind of alien specimen or something. Luckily, Ivy didn't notice these creeps half the time, but still, that's got to be hard, especially when the staff is starting to act like that too. Apparently, she was called up to the Headmaster's office because they had to ask her if she was pregnant because of all the rumours flying around the end of November. And even though I can understand why they'd have to ask because of the heavy-duty stuff involved in Gym class and timing/scheduling issues with the due date, I can also only imagine how humiliating it would be to be asked those kinds of questions by a middle-aged man like Headmaster Cid or even a woman like Dr. Kadowaki. _

_...Well, if I hadn't lost my child, I wouldn't be imagining that scenario – I would have gone through it like she did eventually. Hyne, I can't even write about somebody else without coming back to mine own problems. I guess...there are still a lot of things I have to work through to make peace with what happened. Still, for something that I was nowhere near ready for and was created from all the wrong reasons, I've got this strong attachment that I can't begin to explain for my would-have-been baby, something that goes far deeper than the initial guilt I had of unknowingly causing the miscarriage when I first found out. Is it even normal for someone in my position to have lingering feelings like that? I suppose I'll have to work this out on my own in time, it's not like I know of anyone I can talk to who's been in a similar situation. Even if I had the nerve to talk to Ivy, she still couldn't help me here; her scenario was the total opposite of what mine was._

_But getting back to her, the worst part about all these changes is that I'm finally seeing what she said on that Halloween party, the indifference and disregard I notice with most of the gang towards her, allowing her to stay with us but treating her as if she was invisible. When she asked me to help her pick out some baby clothes that one day, she confessed to me later on that it wasn't just because she wanted to privately tell me her concerns for my well-being, it was also because other than Adrienne, who she knew was working that day, I was the only one who she knew who wouldn't brush her off with a conveniently-prepared excuse or lie. It was at that moment a couple of weeks ago where I started to take notice of the rift and as it stands right now, I want to be able to do something about this, but I can't. _

_Being the new girl doesn't give you that right, because the moment you try to do something, they counter with the typical, 'this is our problem and we've known each other longer so butt out' and then they all start turning on you, making more rifts in the process. All you can really do without disturbing the universe is watch it happen right in front of your eyes. I just hope that being there for her is doing her some good at the very least. Well...make that me, Adrienne and her sister._

_Speaking of which, I talked to Alexis on another occasion when I was visiting Adrienne at their house and I noticed that our similarity goes further than just looking like one another. From what I could tell, she's a lot like me personality-wise too, maybe a little more introverted though. But the strangest thing was that she brought up Seifer in our conversation when I was talking about this one assignment for fourth period and she didn't say it in a bitter context at all. In fact, it was kind of unsettling to notice the difference between what Adrienne's letter in October implied and her behaviour that day. Maybe I was right when I thought that something must be up, or maybe it's because I'm an outsider who doesn't know about all of the details. But really, who's to say? _

_Either way, I'm ending this entry for the night. Gotta stay sharp to tackle that assignment tomorrow – Seifer's counting on me and if I'm not on the ball, Squall might have my head. Even after two months of being at this school, the only thing I know about the guy, outside the cookie cutter descriptions I seem to get from everyone else, is that he takes work far too seriously for his own good, almost like he doesn't live for anything else but school. ...Hyne, I wouldn't be surprised if he had a heart attack between now and the end of the school year with the way he's going. _

_But I'm not going to get into that, my pillow's calling to me. Goodnight!_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"For someone who said they got nine hours sleep, you look like you're going to drop dead at any moment."

Sitting down at her fourth-period seat, Rinoa cast him her best smile. "Okay, I stand corrected Seifer, nine hours of _crummy_ sleep. Ten if you count lunch."

"What? My impersonation of the dear Instructor over there wasn't entertaining enough for you?"

Darting her eyes to the front of class for a split-second, she was relieved to see that Instructor Trepe didn't hear him. She turned back to face him again; class hadn't officially started yet and there was roughly another minute to go.

"_You know,_" she whispered, "_-I'm surprised that you haven't been kicked out of this class for good yet ..or that you haven't driven her to drink heavily._"

"I think you're on to something there, maybe I should send her a couple of bottles for the holidays."

Rinoa rolled her eyes. "Ha. Ha. Very funny. What's next, giving Instructor Kolp a dirty magazine?"

Although he didn't say anything outright, the look on his face said it all and she wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"Ugh. Remind me to never joke around with you ever again. I can't even tell who's a worse influence on whom anymore."

"Come on, that's a no brainer, you're obviously the bad influence out of the two of us. I mean, you never stop talking about binge drinking, looking at porno and..."

Just then, Squall gave the blond a weird look. Seifer turned to catch his eye for a second before going back to what he was saying.

"..Now do you see how much of a bad influence you are Rin? You've even got Squall interested over here-"

Squall shot him an annoyed glare and faced the other way once more, muttering something under his breath that sounded an awful lot like, '.._.And that'll be the day you get straight A's._'

Before Rinoa could get another word in edgewise, the bell had already rung and then, with precision accuracy, Instructor Trepe started to outline what was on the day's agenda. Unfortunately, that preciseness went unwelcomed by the students in class and even went unnoticed by the Garden itself – the fire alarm had gone off, meaning that all of her efforts would have to be channelled into forcing students outside in the chilly temperatures and not telling them to go into their respective groups or haranguing them about the impending deadline and the penalties for late hand-ins.

As she walked out of the classroom along with everyone else, Rinoa couldn't help but notice the visibly worried look the blonde Instructor had as she was systematically counting heads when they passed through the doorway. Curious as to why this was, the teenager asked the nearest classmate to her down in the corridor, which in this case happened to be Paul. Her curiosity doubled, if not tripled when he appeared to look anxious as well. They were already on the main floor past the circular fountains by the time she caught his attention; his mind must have obviously been elsewhere.

"Would you have any idea why Instructor Trepe looks so worried, isn't this is just a normal fire drill?"

"No...this isn't. Balamb Garden never has any during the winter months."

"...So is it possible that somebody pulled the alarm?"

"I...doubt it. Because of the size of the school, it's automatic expulsion for pulling a false alarm and it's impossible to set one off without being filmed on video surveillance."

Rinoa's eyes widened. '-_Oh Hyne.'_

"_Rinoa,_" After hearing her name, she looked in his direction once more. "I haven't seen Ivy since third...do you have any idea where she could be?"

"Yes, I do. She went to the infirmary before fourth to see if they had anything she could take for a really bad stomach ache."

"So I guess...I shouldn't worry then."

As they were now passing through the entrance doors, Rinoa could see the mixture of relief and guilt painted on his face as plain as day among the scores of students in the surrounding area and it effectively struck a chord in her.

"Are you okay Paul?"

This must have caught him off-guard because he answered with a confused, "-Hm?"

Rinoa reiterated her question as they were edging away from the bulk of the crowd and went past the Garden's divider gates a great deal later when the background noise had subsided. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"I heard you the first time. I just...can't find it in me to say, 'I'm fine'."

Now they were completely separated from the crowd. "Paul, when someone asks that question, it doesn't automatically mean that they want to hear 'I'm fine', they want to know if you're okay or not."

When he moved his hand away from his face, Rinoa saw the unspoken hurt well up in his eyes. "Day in and day out, more and more people are treating her like dirt and yet for me, it hasn't changed one bit. ...It's like some cruel kind of double-standard."

"Well...do they know you're the-"

For the first time ever, Paul sounded assertive in his answer. "_-Of course they do_, even the staff knows. I just hate being so powerless to help her with any of this and I know that it won't get any better for the next five or six months." He let out another sigh and averted his gaze. "You have no idea of how much this is eating me up inside."

"No, you're right. I don't." she agreed whole-heartedly before making her actual point. "But what I do know is that Ivy is very lucky to have you."

"-Very lucky to have someone who can't even properly protect her from all this? Last time I checked, that's not lucky."

Rinoa sighed; convincing him wasn't going to be as easy as she thought.

"_No_...I meant that she's lucky to have someone who didn't run away and was willing to be there for her and be supportive. It takes a lot of maturity to do something like that and I don't know of too many people who'd choose to take the responsibility instead of the easy way out."

Paul looked at her curiously. "Um...is there any chance that you overheard me when Ivy first told of this baby?"

The teenager's face went pink. "_Kind of._.."

The curious look dissipated. "Hm. ...Now I know why that line sounded a bit familiar."

"So does that mean you're going to believe me now?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I honestly don't know. My nerves are making it too hard to think clearly about anything at the moment."

"I see."

"-_Hey...did anyone miss me?_"

Both teenagers turned to the side to see Ivy standing right beside them. Rinoa couldn't help but smile, not only for her uncanny timing, but because the very instant he saw her, Paul's melancholy expression lightened right then and there. The other girl looked a little pale from sickness, but otherwise fine with a meek smile on her face.

But whether it was her imagination playing tricks on her or if she hadn't really paid attention for the past couple weeks, Rinoa noticed that her lower part of her stomach around the navel seemed to be a lot more rounded than before, her bump barely contained by the waistband of her itty-bitty jeans and emphasized by the difference in the fit of her forest-green sweater, being loose at the top and snug on the bottom.

'_No wonder all those rumours started flying, she's just as thin as I met her in every place except for her stomach. I wouldn't be surprised if that was all baby too.' _Involuntarily, this thought went on another tangent. _'Hyne, if things were different...that would have been me in January – February if I was lucky._'

'_Wait, why am I thinking of that? I sound like some kind of warped person._'

'_Maybe I __**am**__ some kind of warped person._'

'_You'd better stop that Rinoa or else they're going to start looking at you funny._'

Shaking off the remnants of her thought-induced daze, the teenager clued herself back into the real world in the middle of Ivy's sentence.

"...When they had to send me outside like everyone else, I overheard Dr. Kadowaki talking to Headmaster Cid after he rushed in a minute after the alarm went off. He told her that this wasn't a drill and he mentioned something about the training centre."

Rinoa attempted to rejoin the conversation, "-Do you think there was a fire in the training centre?"

She nodded. "Yes, I was getting to that. He said that a brush fire started in one of the sections because of the abnormally dry conditions."

Paul arched an eyebrow quizzically. "But isn't the Garden supposed make sure that these kinds of things don't happen?"

"I would assume they would but- maybe the training centre's climate couldn't be completely controlled."

The corners of his lips dipped into a partial frown. "_Still_...people _could_ have been hurt by this."

"Paul...I'm fine, you don't have to worry about all the time like this."

Right after the words left her mouth; Rinoa decided to quietly shrink away and leave them alone. The well-developed sense at the back of her mind told her that they needed a private moment without her sticking around like some sort of third wheel. After walking a fair distance away, hoping to find another familiar face, she took a brief glance backwards and sure enough, Paul looked like he was hugging Ivy for dear life. The teenager's head swivelled forward again and she found someone who qualified under the title of familiar face.

"Hey Seifer! Do you think we'll lucky and have an extra week off school for the holidays?"

The blond smirked. "Are you kidding me Rin? If there's any damage done to the building, I think they'll make us repair it in Phys. Ed, nevermind let us off the hook for a whole week."

Now Rinoa was the one with an amused grin on her face. "Child labour doesn't solve everything you know. Besides I think they owe us for all the money we saved them before."

"Hah." he scoffed loudly. "The day they make up for all the crap they make us do is the day I'll eat my gunblade and trench coat in one sitting."

They heard another scoff in the background. "..._That'll be a sight to see._"

Seifer whipped his head around to find the source of the quip. It came from behind him and to be more precise, the last member of their fourth-period assignment group.

"-And what makes you say that Leonhart?"

"Because," Squall said coolly, "-if you would have paid a speck of attention to anything the Headmaster said over there, you would have found out that _she_ was right."

They simultaneously choked. It was a while before Rinoa spit out a coherent sentence.

"._..You've got to be kidding me._"

He gave her a stern look. "-Well I'm not lying."

"Still, wouldn't it make more sense to close off the training centre instead of the whole building for the week?"

"No. There's too much fire damage to get away with that. Safety hazard."

"Oh."

"Now if you two are done flirting-" Seifer cut in scathingly, much to Squall's annoyance and Rinoa's embarrassment, "-Can anyone tell me when I can get out of here?"

"-There aren't going to be any special arrangements with the buses. They're coming at the normal time."

"Oh, that's just _great_."

"Wait," Rinoa piped up, "-what about our knapsacks? If we're not allowed in, how are we supposed to get them back?"

Squall shrugged. "...Don't look at me, I wouldn't know."

"Okay, then I'm going to find what's going on for myself." She politely smiled and waved at the two of them before leaving. "I'll see you guys later. Have a nice vacation."

"You too, Rin. Just don't party _too_ hard." Seifer teased.

Rinoa had to laugh at the idea. "Don't worry, I'll behave."

After the words left her mouth, her eyes drifted over to the other teenager unconsciously. Locking eyes, he acknowledged her with a simple nod. Rinoa returned the gesture with a nod of her own and left.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Monday, December 13__th__ –_

_Well, I've finally come home from school (backpack and everything I might add) and I guess things aren't going to be as relaxing as I thought after Squall informed me that my joke wish was actually right. Granted, everybody's off for an additional week for the holidays, but fourth-period class is, in a way, complicating things...a lot. When I managed to find out about the bag situation via Instructor Trepe, she told me that the assignment had to be handed in first thing after the holidays. Talk about unfair._

_So needless to say, I did a lot of running around afterwards, trying to catch both Seifer and Squall to tell them about it so we could figure out a way to get this done. The only problem was that I only got the job half-done – I never found Seifer, only Squall. Well, it wasn't the worst thing in the world since we __**did**__ manage to work out how to finish the assignment, but...truth be told, I'm kind of, I don't know...apprehensive? I mean, as hard as I try to make my own opinions and not to let other people's sway me...even I can't help but think they've hit the nail on the head about Squall, I'm just not seeing the discrepancy I see in Seifer's case, he hasn't really done anything major to prove it otherwise. And being the way he is, I'm worried about how it'll turn out tomorrow when we're going to be working on the project in the town library without Seifer with us. Hyne only knows I don't feel like contending with his biting sarcasm every second. With any bit of luck, we'll hopefully get everything done in one shot, or at least the bulk of it._

_Regardless, I'd better get all that stuff organized and ready before supper so I won't have the chance to forget._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

He set down his pencil and paper on the library's table top. "...Finally decide to show up?"

Amid the huffing and puffing, Rinoa found the energy to mentally berate herself for missing the city bus. All hopes of delaying the onslaught of his acidic words were skewered right then and there.

She plopped herself down on the adjacent chair to his. "Sorry. _I-_ missed _the-_ bus. Had _to-_ run all the _way-_ here."

"Whatever. Lets just get to work."

"Actually-" She pulled out a sheaf of papers from the confines of her backpack and slid them to his side of the table. "-I have all of my stuff done. All we have to do is type it onto the computer and maybe neaten up the wording."

Accepting the bundle, he did a quick perusal of each page. Once he was finished, he slid it back to her side.

"-It's no good."

Rinoa was flabbergasted.

"_**What?**_"

"_It's no good._" he repeated, stressing every syllable.

"_-And why is it no good?_ I spent hours looking over my books to find all of the information to write my part yesterday; I even cited everything for crying out loud!"

"Because unless if I was unaware that the project had anything to do with-" Squall grabbed the top page from the pile, "'_My Favourite Author in Modern Literature_', I think that you brought the wrong pages."

"_Huh?_ Lemme see that." Grabbing the paper from him, she read the first few lines and frowned. "Oh Hyne... I must have taken the draft for my Lit essay by mistake when I was rushing to get out the door. Great, now I'll have to go back home to get it and it'll take me forever to walk there."

"-If it's going to take you a while, don't bother. We probably won't have this all done by today, so you might as well bring it tomorrow."

"Okay. So what do you want me to do today then?"

"Here-" Squall grabbed the top book off of the small stack beside him and pushed it to her end. "-Start working on Seifer's section while I finish mine."

Cracking the book's spine open, she absent-mindedly nodded. "Sure."

She plucked out a pen and a bunch of blank pieces of paper out of her bag and started peering over the book's contents, making mental notes in addition to physical ones as she scanned each page.

'_Maybe this won't be as bad as I thought after all._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Roughly four good and silent hours later, Rinoa slammed the book closed and went to stretched her arms and legs, not surprised to hear a couple of loud cracks here and there. Sitting in one place for four hours, hunched over awkwardly in an ancient plastic chair no less, wasn't exactly one of the most desirable positions to be in. She looked over at her partner on the other side of the table, only to find him still poring over the source material, pencil hovering over each line he seemed to be reading. Once again, this didn't come as a surprise to her.

"Um...Squall?"

No response, he kept on reading.

This time, Rinoa made an effort to speak louder. "_-Squall?_"

Still no reaction.

'_Okay...'_

"This isn't funny Squall, say something."

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

"Ugh." Now she was at the end of her rope. How hard of hearing did he have to be not to hear that? "Squall if you don't stop this nonsense, I'm going to um...steal your book. _Yeah._"

The trend of unresponsiveness continued.

"-So that's how it's going to be? Okay, then you leave me no choice." Rinoa reached over and stole his book from under his nose. He finally looked up. "_You're-going-to-hear-me... You're-going-to-hear-me... You're-going-to-hear-me... _Did it work?"

"...I'm not deaf. Of course I heard all of that."

"Then why didn't you say something?"

"Because I was trying to tune you out so I could finish the last couple of lines for my section." He reclaimed the book from her grasp. "It won't take much longer so please don't bother me."

"...Fine."

True to his word, it was only a matter of minutes before he closed the book and set it aside. "...How far did you get with the other section?"

Rinoa smiled, he couldn't _possibly_ get snarky with her now. "Actually, I ended up finishing it. Here-" She gave him the pages. "I promise it isn't about my favourite book either."

Shuffling through the pages, he set them down without sliding them back to her like last time. Maybe it was a good sign.

"Hm. Not bad."

"So we'll be able to use it?"

"Yes, but there's one problem."

Rinoa's stomach dropped a little. "What...is it? I didn't forget anything, did I?"

"No, it's just the opposite. It's too good to pass for Seifer's work."

She blinked, unsure of what to say.

"If the Instructor even has the slightest suspicion that you did his part, she's going to fail him on the spot and give us flak for it. I don't want that kind of guilt weighing on my mind."

Rinoa blinked again. "-But I thought you two hated each other."

"No, it's...more like mutual dislike."

"I see. So even though you don't like Seifer, you're not about to mess things up for him when this situation was pretty much outside of everyone's control?"

"More or less, but don't look into it. I still can't tolerate the moron."

"Fair enough. So what do you want me to do?"

"Keep the content, dumb down the phrasing."

"I can do that. So should we meet here tomorrow at the same time then?"

"Al_r-_"

_Beep. Beep. Beep. _

"_-Hold on._" He dug a hand into one of his pockets and extracted a small black cell phone. Flipping it open, his eyes darted back and forth, presumably reading a text, before closing it and swearing under his breath. "-Is there any way you could give me your section today?"

"The only way I could is if I walked home to get it and came back here. Why do you ask?"

"...I just found out that I'm not going to be in Balamb for a while and I don't know when I'll be back."

"Oh. What about Seifer's part?"

"I might as well do it; I'm going to be proof-reading everything anyway."

"So are you fine with me walking?"

"...Depends. How long will it take you?"

"Close to an hour and a half to come here and back."

"No, I need to be home by then. Where you live?"

"I live on the outskirts of town, near the hotel and the harbour."

"-Which street exactly?"

"First Avenue."

"Hm." He started to put away all of the things he brought, including Seifer's part into a bag near his feet. "You don't live too far from my house; I might as well walk with you and go to my house straight after."

"Okay...sounds um, doable."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Well I hope that'll keep you guys happy for a while. Juggling this between university, work and even Breaking Free (which I should have updated first but I didn't feel like it) is getting to be quite difficult. Regardless of all that, no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to find a way to get the ball rolling like I want to. In fact every time I try, I end up doing the opposite, I slow it down. Gah.I swear this fic's got a life of its own sometimes and this chapter's a perfect example.

See what you've just read/skimmed over? Only I could manage to write five thousand words without even denting the surface of what I wanted to do. Geeze, I can't even tell whether that's being talented or pathetic anymore...

_...Maybe you guys could tell me._

_-Emerald-Latias_


	10. Chapter IX – Little White Phone

**Author's Notes –** Hopefully I'll finally get to what I wanted to start roughly...two chapters ago. Stress on the _hopefully_ part of that sentence seeing as I've been wholly unsuccessful the last couple of times. But as the old saying goes, third time's the charm, right?

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter IX – Little White Phone**

_-_

_But I won't stop now,  
Until I find a better part of me,  
That's out there somewhere,  
And it can't be that far away,  
That's where I'll find myself,  
And I'll find my way out,  
That's where I'll find out._

_**-3 Doors Down, The Real Life.**_

-

As they walked along the sidewalks, Rinoa was mentally calculating down the minutes until they'd get to her house and get this done and over with. History seemed to be repeating itself and more often than not, she was playing catch up to his quick and purposeful strides, despite the fact that she was supposed to be leading _him,_ not the other way around. She sighed for what had to be the millionth time during their trek.

'_Ugh, I've had enough of this. I'm going to be in a wheelchair soon if I don't tell him to slow down.' _

"_Squall-_ slow down! I _can't-_ walk that fast."

He stopped on a dime and Rinoa slammed right into his backpack. She recoiled backwards only to see him scowl as he turned around.

"Fine, but I don't have all day. I want this over with so I can get home."

They started walking again at a much more comfortable pace. Looking at the side street they'd just crossed, Rinoa knew that it was still quite a ways away until they'd reach her house, quite a long, quiet and boring ways away if she didn't do anything about it.

"So...why are you leaving Balamb on such short notice?"

Still walking, he looked over at her. "-That's none of your business."

'_Figures._'

"Sorry, I was just wanted to try and make conversation."

"...Don't bother. I'm in no mood to talk."

"-_Well that's nothing new._"

Oops.

'_I can't believe that slipped out..._'

"-You're right, that _isn't_ new." he repeated acerbically.

"Hyne, I didn't mean to say that out loud."

"Whatever, I don't care. It's nothing I haven't heard before."

"Still, it wasn't a nice thing to say. Let me apologize."

He dismissed the idea. "An apology is of no use to me. The world isn't a nice place and the sooner everyone realizes that, the better."

"-You honestly believe that?"

He groaned. "...I thought I made it clear that I wasn't in the mood to talk."

"Answer me that and I promise I'll leave you alone."

"...Fine. I firmly believe that the world isn't a nice place. End of story."

As good as her word, Rinoa didn't say another peep to him. Her cell phone, on the other hand, compensated for the lack of noise. Fishing the little white phone out of her coat pocket, she flipped it open and saw that it was Eden's cell number on the caller ID.

"-Hello?"

"_Hey Rinoa, it's Eden. Where are you?_"

"On the end of my street, I'm walking home."

"_Oh, were you getting something at the corner store?_"

"No, I'm on the other end. I was at the library working on the assignment for fourth period."

"_That's a little far, why don't I pick you up? I'm on your street anyway so I'm sure I'll be able to find you easily._"

"No, I'm fine."

"_Nonsense, I'll come pick you up and we'll do something fun at my house with Lucy and Nat. We're having a girls' night._"

'_Uh oh._'

"Eden, I'd like to but there's something I have to-"

"_No ifs ands or buts Rin._"

_Click! ...Beep. ...Beep._

Not even a minute later, Rinoa saw Squall stop right in front of her as a burgundy car pulled into the closest driveway. And sure enough, Eden was the one who rolled the driver-side window down, with Nat and Lucy both clearly seated in the back, all three of them looking intently at the scene which was going to inevitably unfold.

"Oh I'm sorry Rinoa, I had no idea that you were with him. I thought you were alone by the way you were talking on the phone. Did you want to me to go with the others so you can continue on with...whatever it was you were doing?"

'_Oh no, she thinks that I'm going out with.. -Better clear this up before I have to do some serious damage control._'

"No, I can come. I just have to give him some pages for our project that I forgot earlier so he can add them to the rest of it. It shouldn't take too long."

Eden looked unconvinced. "...You sure? It's no big deal to us if you already had _other_ plans."

'_Ugh. I thought I was being crystal clear with the whole project thing. Guess I'll have to make it ultra-super-mega crystal clear._'

"Eden, I don't have-"

"_No, no, no._" she interrupted. "It's okay. We'll leave."

"But you're not listening to me-"

"-I'm leaving, this is getting nowhere." Squall cut in, his annoyance strongly injected in his tone. He turned towards Rinoa. "...I'll find a way to get the pages after I'm back in Balamb."

And with that, he started walking away briskly, much to Rinoa's chagrin – the girls in the car looked like they were going to eat her alive for all of the non-existent details. The raven-haired girl hesitantly walked over and opened the passenger-side door. Judging by their ravenous expressions, it looked like it was going to be a very _interesting_ girls' night.

"So Rinoa...how did this, ahem, '_project_' of yours go with Mr. Anti-Social?" Natalia jibed. A tiny explosion of titters erupted from the other two as the car was reversing out of the driveway. The quips kept on coming. "-Could you count the number of words he said on one hand or did he stun you with a full sentence before we came?"

Rinoa pinched the bridge of her nose. '_Better avoid that second question. Who knows what'll happen if I told them the truth._'

'_Hyne...I guess this is the kind of thing Squall has to hear all the time. Now I really feel bad for saying what I did, regardless if he said he doesn't mind. I'd hate it if people did that to me._'

"It was okay I suppose. We got a lot of work done."

"...Oh yes Rinoa, I'm sure you two got a lot of _work_ done."

More titters erupted.

"-Nat!" Rinoa shouted indignantly. "Stop making innuendoes, we were in a library working on a school project for Hyne's sake! Not..._whatever_ you were thinking of...that I really,_ really_ don't want to hear about."

"Calm down, it was only a joke. -Besides, you would have been too busy to answer your cell if you did."

She loudly sighed. "...You're having fun with this aren't you?"

Even Natalia's oft-frowning mouth couldn't help but curve into a rare smirk.

"Oh yeah. This is hilarious." the blonde replied wryly.

"_I don't know Nat..._" Lucy drawled from the back seat. "Something tells me that you secretly wish that you were in Rinoa's place."

The smirk faded fast. "-_Quiet..you._"

At this point Rinoa's mind screamed, '_Thank you, thank you, thank you Lucy!_'

The rest of the car trip was relatively silent.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"-Rinoa, could you pass the bag of chips please?"

"Sure." Rinoa grabbed the blue bag on her left and gave it to Lucy on her right, wiping off the bag's residual chip grease afterward.

They were all sandwiched together on an enormous grey at Eden's house, half-watching a rented movie, half-talking about stuff. Rinoa was an exception though. She was simply listening to the snatches of sporadic conversation while absentmindedly eying the blur of colours flashing on the screen.

Lucy accepted the bag. "Thanks."

"No problem."

"So Rinoa," Eden put the movie on pause. Uh oh, not a good sign. "-In all seriousness, what happened before we picked you up? _Was_ there something going on?"

All faces turned towards her and she was trapped within their collective stares. Wait, she wasn't being trapped, there was nothing to feel trapped before, she'd been telling the truth all along.

'..._Still, they're going to think I'm lying no matter what I say because I always end up sounding defensive._'

'_Might as well try, not saying anything won't help me any._'

"Nope, we were just working on our assignment like I said."

'_Yes! That didn't sound defensive at all and they're not looking at me funny, I'm off the hook!_'

"So if I told you that I overheard one of my brother Eric's older friends saying he was interested in you, there wouldn't be a problem if he were to ask you out?"

"Eden, you didn't overhear Tyler," Nat interjected crudely, "-your brother asked you to find out if Rinoa was single for Tyler because you owed him big time."

Eden went red and Rinoa was confused. "Wait- was that why you guys were all bugging me about Squall, because you needed to know if I was single or not?"

"Ah…" Eden's mouth was half-open, unsure of how to form a word with her mouth at the moment. "It would be easier just to say yes, but truthfully, it's a yes and no."

She blinked. "Um, I don't quite understand."

"Well…it's true that I tried to find out for Tyler, but…oh, I can't think of a way of saying this without sounding mean."

"Maybe you should have Nat should speak for you then." Lucy joshed with a big smile. Oddly enough, Natalia didn't take offence, or at least was trying to look like she hadn't.

The sharper-tongued of the two blondes finally relayed what the other wouldn't say. "She means that we were making fun of you because Mr. Anti-Social isn't known for being spotted with people, let alone girls. -And the fact that you were heading to your house was just too convenient to pass up. …Or at least **I** found it convenient, I think Eden actually thought you two were together for a moment there."

"…Well can you blame me? It kind of looked that way for awhile."

Nat snorted. "-You kidding me? The guy's so frigid I wouldn't be surprised if he gave a freezer a run for its money. Hell, the only time I ever heard of him acting the least bit teenager-like was last year, and even then, it could have just been a rumour."

Eden's ears perked up. "I've never heard of any rumour about him. What was it Nat?"

"Well…let's just say that something might have happened over last year's winter vacation."

"-Like?"

"Come on guys…" Rinoa pleaded, "-if this is just another groundless rumour, I don't think it would be a good idea to repeat it in case if it's untrue."

Nat rolled her eyes. "Thank you for the moral lesson of the day Sister Rinoa, I didn't know the dangers of gossiping. Now I see the light." Her sarcastic tone gave way to her usual lightly-condescending one. "Seriously, it's not like I'm sayin' this at school in the lunchroom where everyone can hear. If you don't think it's true than ignore me, it's as simple as that. Besides, if I stop right here, I think Eden will have a panic attack."

The other blonde had a sheepish look present on her features. "Sorry Rin…Nat's kind of right about that. It's like my kryptonite."

'_I guess she's going to say it no matter how hard I try. I'll just have to excuse myself then._'

'-_But why do I have to excuse myself? I should be able to just do as she said and ignore it if I don't think it's true._'

'_I'll do that. I'm above meaningless gossip, right?_'

'…_I hope so._'

A sentence was halfway finished by the time she re-entered the real world. Rinoa shook her head fervently to shake out the cobwebs. Luckily, no one noticed her doing so as they were all rapt in Nat's words.

"-and I guess she must have been embarrassed enough to skip town permanently."

Lucy nearly choked on the last chip she swallowed. "I _**-cough- **_don't –_**cough**_ believe you."

"Well, there's got to be some truth in that. I mean, when was the last time you saw her?"

"Hm…Last year's exams?"

"-And there you go Luce. Maybe that's why we haven't seen her all school year and he's been even more bitter than usual. She moved away and he never found out what happened."

Rinoa was relieved in a way, not hearing half of it at the beginning made it nigh impossible to understand what the rumour entailed.

"So let me get this straight-" Eden cut in. "You're saying that she moved away because the guy, who we all know could easily pass for a robot, got her pregnant when they were both drunk? I like hearing gossip as much as the next girl, but even **I** doubt that very much. He doesn't look like the type to do that, let alone drink. -Where did you hear this anyway?"

The raven-haired girl sputtered a little. '_-Whoa, that was an earful …even though this sounds so farfetched that I'd have to be really naïve to believe it. Hm. I wonder if she made this up just because he didn't like her._'

"I know it sounds like a bit of a stretch but, the girl is my cousin Iris and I heard this from my other cousin Hailey, who's really close to her, so there's a chance that it could be true. Not to mention I haven't seen Iris since June either."

Lucy put down the bag of chips altogether. "I don't know…it still seems a little iffy to me. Now if you told us that she was a textbook…" she said with another burgeoning smirk, "-Then I'd be sold."

"Ah whatever. It's why they call these things rumours. You either believe them or you don't; no big deal." She paused for a second. "Now what _is_ a big deal is how Rinoa over here feels about having a blind date with mister Tyler Reid, now that we've deduced that she isn't attached to Mr. Anti-Social by the hip. Care to fill us in on your thoughts?"

Rinoa uncomfortably shifted. "Um…I'm not too sure about this. I don't know anything about him."

"I could tell you more about him if you want Rinoa." Eden offered.

"I don't know… I'm still a little uneasy about the whole idea to be honest with you."

The other girl clasped her hands together and batted her eyelashes. "Please…pretty please?"

Rinoa sighed. '_Why is it that I just can't disappoint people? Is there something wrong with me?_'

'_-Yeah, I have no backbone._'

'…_She must really owe her brother._'

Ignoring her inner monologue, she caved in, "…Fine, I'll do it as a favour, but only if you answer all of my questions and you promise not to spring something like this on me ever again."

"Thank you so very much Rinoa, you're the best. I'll answer any questions you have in the kitchen while I get something out of the fridge. Come, follow me-"

Rinoa got up and followed her to the kitchen without another peep.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After a minute's worth of walking to the other end of the house, they were in the kitchen in all of its orange wallpapered splendour.

Opening the fridge and digging out two pop cans, Eden opened one for herself and gave one to Rinoa, who gladly took it. Following the crack of the can's tab, the blonde took a swig and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Feel free to ask away."

"Um…okay. So where does this Tyler know me from anyway?"

"He's in our Art class, the one with messy dark brown hair who always gets harassed by Instructor Illione for any little thing."

"I think I may know who he is. Does he have glasses?"

"Yep."

"Okay, so I do know who he is. I'm guessing that he's our age?"

"Uh-huh."

"Hm. What's he like personality-wise?"

"He's really outgoing and funny."

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. "So if he's really outgoing…why didn't he try talking to me before?"

"Well, I don't know for sure, but if I were to guess, I'd say that he didn't talk to you in case if you were with someone, I mean, you _do_ hang around Seifer, Tristan and Ryan a lot."

There was a large pang in her stomach after the second name. "Oh, okay."

'_I still can't believe I'm doing this. I'm not even over what happened last month yet for Hyne's sake._'

'_Does that make me a bad person or a good person?_'

'_I need help. Advice. Anythin-_'

The little white phone struck again, ringing away incessantly in her left pocket. Plucking it out her pocket and checking the caller ID on the screen, Rinoa motioned with her free hand that she was going to take the call somewhere else. Eden nodded and the other teenager went out of the kitchen and into the adjacent bathroom.

"Hello?"

"_Hey Rin, what's up?_"

"-You're not going to believe this Adrienne."

"…_Try me._"

"I was kidnapped by Eden, Lucy and Nat not even a moment after Eden called me when I was walking home from the library."

"_And what's so unbelievable about that? They've kidnapped me plenty of times on short notice. It's made for plenty of fun girls' nights._"

"No, it gets better. They kidnapped me when I was walking home with Squall because I had to give him some pages for the fourth period assignment that I accidentally left at my house."

The line went silent for a good twenty seconds.

"_Uh…Rin, could you repeat the last part, the phone cut you off after 'some'. It made it sound like you said, __**'They kidnapped me when I was walking home with Squall because I had to give him some.**_"

Even Rinoa couldn't help but laugh at this one, the timing was just too perfect. "There were some pages I had to give him for the fourth-period assignment because I forgot them at home."

"_That's better. I was worried that you suddenly turned into a tease overnight. So, did they have a field day with that?_"

"That and then some. Nat didn't waste time to start making innuendoes just to poke fun at me."

"_Ah, that doesn't surprise me; she always resorts to that kind of thing whenever something's bothering her, even if she won't admit it - but now's not the time to get into that. So, you guys doing anything fun at Eden's house?_"

"How did you know I'm there?"

"_I was invited to come over this afternoon, but I couldn't go because of work._"

"Oh, I see. Well…we _were_ watching a movie, but then Eden decided to stop it to grill me about my library time with Squall. Turns out they were all bothering me so much because she needed to know if I was single because one of her brother's friends supposedly wants to ask me out or something. That, and Nat decided to share a _nice little _rumour about my library partner." She stopped to regain her breath. "-_Crazy day I'm having, huh?_"

Rinoa heard some chuckling in the background. "_The fun never stops with you, does it Rinoa? Ha, ha. So… who's the lucky guy?_"

"This guy in my art class, Tyler Reid. I'm not sure if I want to play along though, I don't know what to expect or how to take this. I only said yes to Eden because she needed the favour, but…I, um… I'm nervous."

"_Well if you said yes, there's no backing down. Besides, this is a perfect opportunity to work on your shyness._"

"Yeah, but I'm having second thoughts, I…um…don't exactly have a good track record in that department."

"_Rin, just because you agreed to give him a chance, doesn't mean you're obligated jump head first into a serious relationship. Go on a date, try to have fun and if it doesn't click, then it doesn't click._"

"Thanks Adrienne, I feel a lot better now."

"_It's what I do. Now what was that rumour about? I'm curious._"

"I don't think it's my place to repeat it, it's kind of too farfetched to be believable."

"_I already knew that much. I just want to hear it because it's probably very entertaining._"

"Okay, but you might want to be sitting down for this."

The phone picked up the sound of a chair being scraped along on a hard surface. "_I'm sitting down, go ahead._"

"From what she said, both him and her cousin got drunk during last year's winter vacation and he got her pregnant. Then, when she found out, she was so embarrassed that she moved away and he never found out what happened to her. The whole thing sounds ridiculous to me, especially after spending four hours in a stuffy library with him."

"_Hyne, that __**is**__ ridiculous...but then again, I know that people do strange things when they're bitter. One thing goes terribly wrong and the next thing you know, you're stuck in your own little world and the only way you cope is by trying to drag other people down with you. It's like they say, misery loves company._"

"Hm, I suppose your right. Well…I have to go. The others are probably wondering if I died in the bathroom."

"'_Kay, I'll talk to you later, and then you can tell me all about your __**date.**_"

"Ha. Ha. Very funny. Bye."

"_Bye._"

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Wednesday, December 15th _–

_There's no going back now, looks like this date (blind date?) is going to happen whether I want it to or not. After finishing up my call with Adrienne, I went back in the kitchen and Eden told me that she had already texted her brother so he could tell Tyler. Hyne, I don't know I'm just being a good friend or if I'm being taken advantage of right now. My guess would be the latter. Doesn't 'Rinoa the Doormat' have a nice ring to it? Ha. Ha. Oh well, I'll just get this done and over with and be back on my merry way in no time. _

_Gah, I think that watching all of those movies at Eden's house has damaged my ability to write serious sentences. No wait, I had that problem before. My mistake._

_Either way, to say that yesterday was an interesting day would be a big understatement. There are so many loose ends in my head that I don't know where to start and right now, I wish I wasn't such a curious person. This is nuts, nothing's making sense anymore. I want to know why there's a guy who likes me and I don't even know what I did to make him like me - now that's a foreign concept if I ever heard of one. Next, there's Nat who's trying to make us believe that her cousin was carrying Squall's child after a drunken-—Aah, I can't even write the words because it sounds so ridiculous. It's obvious that she bitter from being turned down, but... I don't understand why she'd tell us something so... far out there if all she wanted to do is put him down. In all honesty, I would have been more likely to believe something like... he beat someone up for no reason. That kind of thing would have made more sense, oddly enough. The sad part is that I think the others started to believe her after she said that it was her other cousin who told her. Bitter is as bitter does, I suppose._

_Hyne, now that I think of it, there's the project I have to worry about too. Great, now there's another loose end in my head. How am I going to figure how a way to get the pages to Squall when I don't even know anything about where he was going or how long he's out of town for? I wish he would have said something so I would have had an idea at the very least. I hope he can find a way to contact me. Wait, how is he going to contact me when I didn't even give a number, e-mail or my address? Darn. Looks like I'm going to some light reading in the phone book to figure out a way to reach him. Leonhart isn't a common last name is it? -Probably not. Hm. Maybe I'll be able to figure out by looking at the home addresses under the numbers if it's listed. He did say that he didn't live too far away from me after all._

_-Whoa, my phone is going off. Better stop here and answer it._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Flipping the phone cover up, Rinoa answered with, "Hello?"

"-_Is this Rinoa Heartilly?_"

"Um...yeah..."

"_You may not know me, but I'm Tyler Reid._"

'_Ah, so that solves that mystery. I knew it didn't sound like Squall._'

"So you're the one my _friend_ Eden was talking about."

"_Yeah, about that...I'm really sorry if the whole situation was a little creepy. It's just that didn't know how to approach you because you were always with someone at school and my friend asked his sister to find out if you were single without me knowing. I only found out when he sent me text explaining what he did along with your number. ...Which kind of explains why you're listening to me babble on and on right now._"

'_Wow. This changes a lot of things...'_

"Oh, okay, um, don't worry, I understand."

"..._Um, so did you want to do something then?_"

Rinoa paused. '_It won't kill you Rinoa, just go for it! You can do it._'

"Sure."

"_Does a movie sometime this week sound okay to you? I'm available any day._"

'_Don't stop now, you're almost there!'_

"-Sounds good. I'm available any day too."

"_How about tonight then? You could pick the movie._"

"Actually, I'd feel better if we decided together."

"_Sure, whatever works for you. Meet at the movies at seven?_"

"I'll be there."

"_Great. I'll be waiting outside of the building wearing a navy-blue jacket. You know what I look like, right?_"

"I'm pretty sure I do. Dark brown hair and glasses?"

"_Not exactly,_" he paused, "..._I got contacts yesterday._"

"Okay, I'll remember that."

"_See you at seven then._"

"Same here."

_Click._

Rinoa smiled. '_You did it. You made it._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Damn! I thought I was going to get to the turning point this time. Oh well, with the way this is set up, I _**know**_ I'll get there in the next chapter. To be honest with you guys, I could have made it in this chapter, but I would have made it too long and I didn't want the pivotal point to lose its effectiveness only because the chapter dragged on and on just to get there. Besides, this made for a neat semi-cliffy, right?

Oh and before I forget, whether you've read it through my profile page or not, I'm putting Breaking Free on hold and only updating Reinventing Me in the meantime because university and work's really chewing up my free time.

Either way, I hope to hear from you guys so drop me a line,

_-Emerald-Latias _


	11. Chapter X – Reinventing Me

**Author's Notes **– Well, I guess the third time wasn't the charm; it'll be the fourth by the looks of it. Oh well, look on the bright side, you guys got an extra chapter out of it, making the fun last _that_ much longer! Okay, I'll stop writing things that make me sound like I'm on cheap drugs and get on with Chapter 10.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter X – Reinventing Me**

_-_

_I made my mistakes,  
I've got no where to run,  
The night goes on,  
As I'm fading away,  
I'm sick of this life,  
I just wanna scream,  
How could this happen to me?_

_**-Simple Plan, Untitled.**_

-

'_You'll be fine Rinoa. You've already gotten this far, you can finish what you set out to do._'

'_I can do this...I can do this. It's not going to be as difficult as I think it will be; my brain's only playing tricks on me._'

'_...Here goes nothing._'

"Ouch!"

Hopping around madly on one foot, Rinoa was already having second thoughts about the sparkly dress shoes she wanted to wear to the date. She cast off the one heel that she had previously struggled with many times in vain to put on. No one in their right mind would wear such toe-torturing footwear, not even for all of the sparkles in the world.

Perusing the remaining pile of shoes near the entranceway, Rinoa opted for the shoes that would theoretically give her the least resistance and overall hassle – the practical, yet pretty black winter boots. Her feet instantly felt the relief once she slid them on.

'_Oh, that's a __**lot**__ better..._'

Taking a quick glance at the dainty silver watch she'd put on just for the occasion, Rinoa's eyes went wide open. Within seconds, she zipped up the light blue coat she had on, grabbed her matching purse and darted out of the door. Spare time wasn't exactly plentiful right now, despite the fact that the theatre was within walking distance. At least the temperature wasn't too cold considering that the sun had already set.

Speed-walking along the sidewalk at a brisk pace, Rinoa couldn't help but smile at how the whole situation had played out so quickly, literally within a span of a day. However, she couldn't help but wonder about this as well. Stopping at the corner she was supposed to turn left at, she found a bench by the nearby corner store, sat down and looked at her watch again.

Maybe there was some spare time after all, or maybe it wouldn't matter if she was a few minutes late.

Rinoa rested her elbows on her knees and her face on top of her palms, intently staring at her boots.

'_I'm so confused. One minute, I'm happy for this date, the next, I feel guilty and ashamed. No matter how hard I try to let go of my past, everything keeps on coming back to bite me in the-_'

She got up.

'_No, I can't back out. I have to do this. Even if this goes nowhere and it's just this one time, I have to go so I can at least start somewhere, like Adrienne said. Being shyer than I used to be is my problem, it's making me over-think and over-analyze everything and that's why I can't enjoy anything and get back to normal. I worry too much and it screws up everything.'_

'_...Like what's happening right now._'

Shaking off the jitters built-up in her legs, Rinoa left the bench altogether and started walking again. '-_But not any more._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Roughly twenty minutes later, Rinoa finally found herself at the entrance of the movie theatre. Now all she had to do was mentally weed out the outside stragglers to find her date and she'd be all set. But first—

Opening her purse's flap, Rinoa took out a small brush and attacked her wind-swept hair. This had been driving her nuts ever since she'd resumed walking after sitting on the bench earlier, especially since she knew what kind of horrors that have been known to occur whenever the wind played around with her tendrils. It wasn't like she was in some kind of shampoo commercial where she'd be standing on a balcony and the wind would be tastefully blowing through her hair, somehow managing to showcase her silky raven tresses at the same time.

Oh no, not by a long shot. Life was never like shampoo commercials.

With a hint of a smirk on her face, Rinoa put away the brush and scanned the area for Tyler, reminding herself that he was supposed to be wearing a navy-blue jacket and was sans glasses now.

'_Hyne, now I'm not even sure of what he looks like anymore. Those glasses were the only real thing I remembered and anyone could be wearing a blue jacket._'

'_Hey, come to think of it, he kind of looked like Tristan, maybe taller._' Her initial thought went on a tangent and Rinoa couldn't suppress the urge to inwardly laugh at it. '..._Hyne, maybe I'm like a magnet for boys with brown hair and blue eyes._' Yet another after-thought came to mind, causing her to smirk even more. '_..Well, at least for the ones with names that start with T._'

"Hey." The semi-familiar voice came from behind.

"...Hm?" The teenager turned around. There was no doubt in her mind; this guy had to be Tyler. "..Hi."

He smiled almost embarrassedly. "Sorry I'm late."

"That's okay."

"Oh good. Let's go inside before we freeze to death."

If she weren't kind of cold, Rinoa was under the sneaking suspicion that her cheeks would have been red by now. "...Sure."

As they were walking inside the building, Rinoa consciously ditched all preconceived physical comparisons to Tristan. Although they did share similar traits, like hair and eye colour, Tyler looked, for a lack of a better word, _older_. He had the kind of lean muscular build and mature face that got you into bars and ordering drinks underage, no questions asked. Oh and yes, he was taller too.

Tyler stopped and Rinoa did the same a split-second later. They were now in line and a fair distance away from the counter with nine people in front of them.

"So which movie looks good to you?"

"-Um, I don't know. Maybe that second one? Most of the other ones are already playing."

"I wouldn't mind seeing that too, but it starts kind of late. ...You okay with that?"

"Oh, that's no problem. I'm calling my parents to pick me up once the movie's done."

He arched an eyebrow. "If we went to see that, it wouldn't be done until after twelve, are you sure that you want to call them at that time? I mean, it's no problem if I dropped you off at your house."

"Um..." Rinoa paused.

'_What do I do? I wasn't expecting a scenario like that._'

'_Well he is right... my parents wouldn't like being waken up like that when I didn't exactly tell them about this._'

"...Okay. I don't live too far from here anyway."

The line finally moved. Now there were only six people in front of them.

"Then that's settled. Now all we'll have to do is figure out how to spend an hour and a half in the theatre given that we'll be another three minutes here and twenty for the concession with that monster line-up over there."

She shrugged. "We could talk about stuff and get to know each other a little."

"...Sure, might as well."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"Okay, since you know my birthday now, when's yours?"

"June 6th. Got another question for me? I can't think of anymore to ask you at the moment."

Rinoa quietly laughed. They'd been swapping questions for quite some time now in the second-to-last row of the third theatre. So far she'd been asked her favourite kind of popwas_ (cream soda)_, the two things she'd bring if she was stuck on a desert island _(a notebook and pen – preferably a gel pen, if possible)_, if she had any brothers or sisters _(does my dog Angelo count?)_, favourite colour _(blue, blue, blue) _, and recently, her birthday. In turn, she asked him about how he coped with Mr. Illione's wrath daily (_I doodle exaggerated caricatures of him in my notebook while he's talking - you should see them, they're hilarious_), the strangest thing he ever wore _(my_ _Halloween costume two years ago, you __**don't**__ want to know_), what would be the best superpower to have _(invisibility)_, the oldest he's ever been mistaken for _(twenty-two or twenty-four? I can't remember right now), _what did he thought about tattoos and stuff like that (_you mean if I have any? no? oh, I get what you mean ...um, personally, I think they're cool as long as they mean something to the person – now you're asking me if I have one? yeah, I do – it's on my upper back_).

"Okay, so um...are your contacts any different from your glasses?"

His face lit up. "There's no comparison. I see a lot better now and I don't have to worry about remembering where I put what anymore. If I was wearing my old glasses, I wouldn't be able to tell what colour your eyes were in this lighting without squinting."

"It was that bad, huh?"

"Yeah, I needed a new prescription...badly." He paused for a moment. "...God, I never thought I'd be talking about my farsightedness on a date. I must be boring you to death by now."

"No, you're not boring. Besides, I was the one who asked the question. I was curious because you look a whole lot different without your glasses so I imagined it must have felt different too. I don't wear glasses so I wouldn't know."

He blinked. "Hm. I never thought of it that way. Then again, I knew what I looked like without my glasses before..._like a rectangular peach blob._"

Rinoa giggled a little.

"...I didn't think that'd come out funny at all."

Still smirking a little from the remark, she replied with, "Well it kind of did."

"Hyne, I almost wish we weren't seeing a movie, talking to you would probably be more interesting."

Her smirk grew. "Well nothing's stopping us from leaving to go somewhere else if you really mean that."

"_Or better yet-_" He motioned for her to come closer. When she was close enough, he whispered the rest in her ear.

"-That would be awesome."

"-So you want to?"

"Sure."

They both got up and left the theatre. Rinoa couldn't believe was she was going on such a whim; the idea he proposed was something she'd never even thought of doing in her lifetime. However, she reminded herself that tonight wasn't about sticking to the norm; it was about broadening her mind and taking a chance on something for a change.

Once they were out of the complex altogether, she zipped up her coat and huddled her arms closely together, following his every step forward.

"So, where is this place you were talking about?"

"It's not far from here, the park's maybe a street or two down. I'll drive us there and park somewhere close so we don't have to walk far when we're there."

"Good idea. We'll probably be all bruised and achy afterwards. ...Or I know I will. I have no balance what so ever."

"Don't worry; I'll try to make sure you don't fall on the ice. You might have a bit of trouble at first since sliding around the rink without any skates does take a little getting used to, but it's worth it."

"-I can imagine. As a little kid, I used to love sliding on the ice patches at school. ..And get mad whenever the janitor ruined them on purpose by putting salt."

Tyler let out a small chuckle. "Somehow I figured you'd like this idea. From the way you were talking, you seemed like the type of person who would."

Rinoa smirked at him. "_...And what type of person may that be?_"

He confidently smirked back. "-The fun and adventurous type."

"-Really? I would have never picked those for myself."

"Well maybe you are those things and just don't know it."

She giggled at the thought. "We'll just see about that."

They'd finally reached his fire-engine red sports car. After he went on the driver's side while Rinoa went on the passenger's and started fishing for his keys, he lastly added, "Oh, I have no doubt that you are."

As he unlocked the passenger's door for her, Rinoa climbed in and bucked herself in securely with the seatbelt.

'_You know what? Maybe if start believing that I am, maybe I will be like that soon._'

'-_And I can't see any other better time to do that then now._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Thursday, December 16__th__ –_

_Wow. I can't even begin to describe how fun last night was. I'm still speechless, even a day later. I never thought I'd want to see him again so soon, I was expecting a disaster in all honesty. Ah...whatever. Hyne only knows I could use a dose of fun in my life. If my little white phone went off tomorrow, or even tonight, I think I'd be ecstatic. I'm even in the mood to talk to Adrienne about last night. And if that's not saying something, I don't know what is._

_Last night, when we got to the frozen pond, it was almost like someone turned on a switch for the both of us. When Eden said that he was funny and outgoing, I didn't believe her description when we first met in the theatre. My initial impression of him was that he seemed kind of apologetic and nervous, even for someone in his position. It wasn't until he suggested that we go to the pond to slide around that he started to loosen up and it was only when we'd physically left the building when he finally shook off his nervousness altogether and showed that other side. And that's when the 'think' button inside my head must have shut off too._

_Surprisingly enough, when we both started sliding around on the frozen pond, I got the hang of it pretty quickly after a few strides with Tyler near me. I guess the experience from my childhood days of sliding on ice patches probably stayed with me all this time, or I've got a natural knack for this kind of thing. Ha, ha... leave it up to me to have another weird knack for something like that. I never cease to surprise me anymore..hehe. Anyways...getting back to the subject, I obviously had a blast sliding around and talking at the same time. Hm. I wonder if nostalgia had something to do with it. Oh well, I don't really care, all I know is that I had loads of fun and it ended on a nice note too, unlike ...the Halloween party. The best thing about the whole thing was that I actually did what I set out to do – I simply let myself be a normal teenager. I think Adrienne would be proud of me. _

_-But who knows? Maybe if I'm lucky enough to get a few more dates under my belt, maybe I'll get back into the swing of things and be the Rinoa I know I am deep down inside. _

_Wouldn't that be wonderful? _

_-I think so. _

_I've had to live through enough heartache to last a lifetime. But...I shouldn't be thinking of that anymore, should I? No, I should be thinking of now. Hyne, is it unhealthy to want the present to stand still?_

_Aah, I'd better not try and think of that answer. I'll probably confuse myself in the process._

_Oh wait! I forgot to mention something about when we were on the pond. When we we're having a conversation about whatever came to mind while we were sliding, it somehow got on the subject of parties and whatnot, and it turns out that he was the person Tristan was referring to when he said that someone helped him move his buddy earlier after he helped me move Nat. _

_Creepy how things go in circles like that, huh? _

_Either way, I gotta try to go to bed, although it'll be tough since I feel so darn excited at the moment._

_Oh well. Have to try anyway._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Saturday (early Sunday), December 18/19__th__ –_

_I just got back home and it's maybe one at night (at what point does it become 'in the morning'? I've always wondered about that) and I don't think I'll be going to sleep any time soon. You know that tingly sensation you get when you drink too much of something with caffeine in it on an empty stomach? I feel like that, only I didn't have pop. I didn't have anything actually. It's all one-hundred percent Rinoa. _

_I feel like I can skip, hop and jump around town with all of the energy I've got built up. It's just that crazy right now. I'm practically over the moon. That second date was awesome; I can't even begin to describe it. It was that good, even better than the first, if possible. Maybe it had to do with the fact that we were more comfortable with each other, or maybe it was because I felt proud knowing that I was responsible for initiating it. Hyne, I really, __**-really-**__ think I'm getting back to normal. I haven't gotten to talk with Adrienne yet, but I think this'll come as a surprise to her. Finally, for once, I won't be on the receiving end of those. I'm so happy that I almost feel like dotting my 'I's with smiley faces and putting multiple exclamation marks at the end of each sentence...hold on, I want to try that out (maybe not the smiley faces though)._

_It wasn't too long after lunch Friday when he called to say how he enjoyed the date Wednesday and I more-or-less asked him if he was available sometime soon and he said was free for the weekend!! It made my day!! _

_Okay, maybe I shouldn't do that...I'm making myself look like I dropped ten IQ points. Damn you evil, non-erasable sparkly gel pen!!_

_-Ack. I've really got to stop that now..._

_So, where was I? Oh yeah, right before the date. Anyways, if I thought that Tyler was more at ease on the pond during the first date, that was nothing compared to tonight/last night. He practically had me in stitches the entire time when we in this nice restaurant. I think I nearly got us kicked out with all the laughing I did though. Good thing I went to the bathroom to compose myself when I did, although I don't think he would have minded being kicked out. As long as we can have back-and-forth random conversations and the odd witty comment here and there, I don't think he cares about where we are. _

_In fact, I've come to realize that there this kind of playful-yet-antsy energy to him, something that I can't quite put my finger on. Hm, that could probably explain why Instructor Illione's always on his back. Oh, speaking of which, when we were just walking around town later, doing whatever, he had to stop to re-tie his shoelace. And with the way he bent over to tie it, I saw the tiniest part of the tattoo he said he had peeking from the collar of his jacket so I had to ask about it. Gotta love curiosity, huh? Ha, ha. I must admit that I wasn't expecting him to lift the better part of the shirt up to show me the tattoo though; I was only expecting a brief explanation from him. Needless to say, I kind of went pinkish-red for a moment there._

_...Anyways, it's four red stars that arc like a semi-circle and a smaller black star right beneath it. He said that the red stars represent his four sisters and the small black one represents him because he's the 'odd one out' (his words) because he's the youngest and the only boy in the family. _

_Hm. Maybe that's why he asked me if I had any brothers or sisters on Wednesday. It's a shame I can't relate to any of those kinds of things, being an only child and all. It's almost like the glasses thing too; I don't know how it is. Oh well, maybe I could get a glimpse of that kind of life through him. Oh, you know what's the weirdest thing? He already has two nephews and a niece. _

_Now __**that**__ sounds crazy._

_Gee, I'm writing about whatever comes to mine, aren't I? Aah, I'd better set down the pen and paper for now. Hyne, I know I'll need some rest for the lecture I'll have to endure tomorrow for being out so late._

_Goodnight!_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Monday, December 27__th__ –_

_Phew. I'm glad things are winding down right now. Last week was busy, busy, busy preparing for the holidays while squeezing in some time for friends, family and Tyler. I haven't gotten around to talking to Adrienne (I left a message on her cell yesterday though), nor have I heard anything from Squall yet. I'm sort of getting worried about the project now since I actually have time to worry now, but it's really outside of my control so...there's nothing I can really do outside waiting. But at least I can be thankful that it's only a matter of meeting up with each other to put everything together and not because we have to do any actual work. _

_Still, who could be gone for nearly two weeks when it's not even a vacation? Well...I'm assuming it's not a vacation judging by the swearing he did under his breath after that phone call, but then again, I could be wrong here. _

_Regardless of that, I'm really enjoying my vacation so far. Last week was like a marathon of one fun thing to the next and guess what? The one day I was visiting Ivy to give her a present for her and the baby for Christmas and right after she thanked me for the baby clothes and a set of comfy pyjamas and slippers for her, she let it slip that she found out what they were having at the doctor's. _

_Remembering what I'd thought about from that one journal entry a couple of weeks ago, I asked her if I could guess the gender and she told me to go ahead. So I told her my guess and sure enough, Rinoa the Fortune Teller was right again. At that point she was all smiles because apparently, the baby was the sex that she secretly wanted to have and she's having fun teasing Paul about him not knowing (he couldn't be at the appointment because of work). I'm glad that in spite of the circumstances, she's found some happiness out of this. I just hope that the people won't be too cruel when we all come back after the holidays because when I was there, her lower stomach was a fair bit bigger than the day of the fire alarm and it's really starting to get noticeable because the rest of her is still fairly skinny as usual, so the contrast might make her seem bigger and it might get people's attention._

_I asked her how she was holding up since the holidays started and she said that she felt better because her morning sickness had gone away but it was getting kind of annoying to have to 'steal' clothes from her older sister because none of her jeans would button up, and most of her shirts were either getting too stretched out or they weren't covering her tummy completely. So when I offered to come along shopping for clothes before the holidays ended, I could tell that she was happy at the idea of having company for something like that. I guess she's still having difficulty with the others. Also, although I was sort of expecting this, she wasn't even asked to come to the girls' night two weeks ago. I still feel really bad for not being able to really do anything about it, but I feel a tiny bit better knowing that I'm helping in other way._

_As for Tyler, we managed to squeak in a couple of small dates on the 21st and 23rd and I'm still as giddy and excited as ever. I honestly think that I've gotten rid of most of my shyness for good and that I'm getting real close to the Rinoa I was two years ago. I'm so close I think I can taste it. Well, I must be because I let him kiss me on the Thursday and I didn't have any reservations about it or any fears that it would get too far. It was nice. He's really come a long way from the guy I met on the first date at the theatres and so have I. We're like our opposites now; I'm not as introverted and he's not that apprehensive anymore. In fact, if he would have had the chance to, I think he would have already kissed me on our second date. If there's one thing I can say I know about him, it's the fact that he won't hesitate to do whatever he feels comfortable with if he thinks that the situation is right._

_-Oh! There goes my phone, must be Adrienne. Got to go!_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"-Hello?"

"_Wow, that was quick. What do you have, radar?_"

Rinoa laughed a little. "No Adrienne, I answered my phone quickly because it was right beside me. No radar necessary."

"_Hyne, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that you've been enjoying your vacation thoroughly so far. Your voice is oozing with 'happy'. So, what's new? I just got your message this afternoon._"

"Well...you did want the details of my _date_ some odd weeks ago, right?"

The line went silent for a moment. _"...And to think, I was envisioning having to pry the details from you by force. So, how did it go?"_

Unbeknownst to Adrienne, she smirked devilishly. For once, she wasn't going to be on the receiving end of a colossal surprise.

"It went very well and so did the other three."

Evident from the lack of response, Rinoa could tell that the other girl was flabbergasted. "_Who are you and where are you hiding the real Rinoa?_"

"Ha, ha. Very funny."

"_No, I'm not kidding. Where did you put her?_"

"Nowhere. I just followed your advice, we both had tons of fun and it _clicked_."

"_Okay, so now that we've established that you two 'clicked', you have to dish on the specifics._"

"...What _kind _of specifics?" she teased playfully, consciously drawing out the tension on purpose.

"_That's evil Rin. I know that you know what I'm talking about." _

"No I don't." she responded, feigning ignorance quite comically. "Tell me."

She heard a cross between a sigh and a chuckle on the other end. _"Where, what and is he good looking._"

"Ohh, now I know what you meant. Lemme think..umm..."

"_...I hope you know you're killing me here._"

"I know." she replied cheekily. "All of the dates or just the first?"

"_Of course I want to hear about all of them. I want to know everything down the last insignificant detail. And before you try to draw this out any longer by asking what to talk about first, start with what you actually did on those dates._"

Rinoa giggled. "Hehe, okay. The first date we went to the movies, but before it actually started, we decided to skip it and go slide around an ice rink. For the second, we went to a restaurant for a late supper and took a walk around town. Third, we actually saw the movie we skipped on the first date. As for the last one, we had planned to just spend the afternoon doing whatever came to mind and it ended up lasting until mid evening."

"_Fair enough, so what does he look like exactly? I vaguely remember what he looks like._"

"He's fairly tall, maybe a half a head taller than Ryan, thin but really athletic, messy dark brown hair, sea-blue eyes and very mature looking, like he could pass for over twenty."

"_You know Rin...you don't have to be so prim and proper in your description there. You __**can**__ say that he's a tall, handsome guy with sexy blue eyes and drool-worthy body that you want to jump badly._"

"_**Adrienne!**_" Rinoa shouted indignantly into the phone's receiver. There was laughing in the background. "...You're just as bad as Nat was when she kept on making innuendos about me and Squall."

The laughing stopped. "_Consider it payback for making me wait earlier. Besides, I know you're not like that. But then again, you've been surprising me a lot today._"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"_If means that I want know if you've done anything un-Rinoa like._"

"...Like?"

"-_Like, have you done anything with him yet._"

"Oh! Uh...no."

"_You're such a bad liar Rin. Come on, tell me. It'll be just between us._"

'_Why did I get all bashful all of a sudden? Getting one kiss isn't a life-shattering secret. I can tell her, she won't broadcast it.' _

"Okay, okay...I'll tell you. He kissed me on our last date. That's all, nothing big."

"_Aw, looks like you're breaking out of your shell after all. I'm proud of you._"

Rinoa felt heat rising in her cheeks. "...Thanks Adrienne."

"_So I take it you'll be bringing him to my New Year's Eve slash birthday bash? It'll be awesome. It won't be as big as the Halloween party we went to, but I'm inviting the whole gang and some of Ryan's friends are coming over too._"

'_Hyne, I almost forgot about that._'

"Sure, I'll talk to him soon."

"_Great. So have you managed to talk to anyone recently? I haven't been in town for the past week and a half."_

"Oh, where were you?

"_I was in Esthar on a surprise vacation my parents organized, I just got back today. It's a really high-tech place and they've got excellent shopping malls. If I ever save enough money, I'm definitely going back there."_

"Sounds nice. Well, outside the girls' night, I visited Ivy last week to give her something for her and the baby for Christmas.

"_Oh, how is she? Don't tell her I did this but, I bought some high-quality Moomba and Moogle stuffed animals for the baby in Esthar. I swear they're the cutest toys I've ever laid eyes on in my life."_

"Don't worry, I won't tell. She's doing better. She doesn't have anymore morning sickness but she's getting annoyed because she has to raid her sister's closet to find anything that fits.

"_Well, that's understandable. She's about..four months now? I'm surprised her normal clothes have lasted as long as they did. From what I read, most women have to buy actual maternity clothes by three months, not buy the next size up at four."_

"I didn't know that."

"_I know, neither did I. After she came over in October to tell us she was keeping the baby, I did a bit of researching on my own on the Internet and printed off whatever I thought could have been useful for her, put it in a binder and gave it to her._"

"That was nice of you to do that."

"_Please, it was nothing. So, anything else I missed while I was away?_"

"Actually, I forgot to mention something."

"_What was it?_"

"Ivy knows what she's having. Do you want to know?"

"_Sure." _

"You want me to just say it or do you want to make guess first like I did?"

"_-Okay, I'll guess. I'm guessing that it's a little girl." _

"So are you sticking with that answer?"

"_Yep._"

"Okay... She's having a little-–-"

"_Rinoa? Did the phone cut you off again? I didn't hear you after 'little' _"

"Nope, I just wanted to add an element of suspense here because she's having a boy."

"_Oh really? That's so nice."_

"I know. She told me that's what she wanted all along. Not to mention she's having fun teasing Paul about knowing the baby's sex because he was working when she had the appointment."

Adrienne laughed. "_That's good. Say, there's one last thing I wanted to tell you before I go eat supper."_

"Go ahead."

"_The weirdest thing happened to me when I was Esthar._"

"Like what?"

"_I bumped into Squall and his mother there. And they were staying in same hotel we were in too, on the floor above us._"

'_...So that's were he is._'

"That is weird. Did you find out what he was doing there?"

"_Nope. My mom was talking to his mom for maybe five minutes when we first bumped into them, but she didn't tell me anything about what they said to each other afterwards. I never knew that Squall was a dead-ringer for his mother though._"

"Uh-huh."

'_Oh well, I suppose it wasn't any of my business anyway._' she mused. '_But at least it gives me an idea of the situation though._'

"_Well, talk to you later. If not, I'll see you at the party._"

"Bye."

"_Bye._"

_Click! Beep...Beep._

Still holding her phone, Rinoa pushed a few buttons and held the receiver to her ear again. A bemused voice answered.

"-_Hello?_"

"Hey Tyler, it's Rinoa."

"_Oh, hey. What's up?_"

"I was just wondering if you wanted to go to a New Year's Eve party with me. My friend's hosting it and—"

"-_Actually... I was kind of hoping to do something with just you._"

"Oh, what did you have in mind?"

"_I can't tell you, I want it to be a surprise._"

"Well...is there a way we could manage both? The party is also for her birthday."

"_Yeah, I suppose we could do that if we either leave earlier or get there later._"

"Would getting there later be okay then?"

"That's perfectly fine with me. So if I pick you up at seven and get to this party at say, nine-thirty, would that be alright?"

"Sounds good. We won't miss much since the party starts at about that time anyways. I'll tell you how to get there when we leave from..._your surprise_."

"_Awesome. See you then._"

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Friday, December 31__st__ –_

_Just writing a quick entry before I head out for the most exciting New Year's Eve of my life! With Tyler's surprise and Adrienne's sure-to-be-awesome party right after, I feel like I'm right back into the swing of normal teenage things, going to parties, having a proper boyfriend...that sort of thing. At least there won't be as many people at the party and I'll know a lot more of the one's going so I won't feel like I'm a tiny fish lost in a big sea like the Halloween party. Maybe I'll have a bit to drink there too, if the stuff there doesn't taste like cough syrup. Hehe. Whatever the case, I know I'll have fun tonight. _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"So...where are we going?"

After spending the last half-hour driving around the dark, unnamed streets of the harbour side, sitting quietly in the passenger's seat, Rinoa's curiosity was finally getting the best of her. Tyler flashed a smug smirk at her in response.

"Now if I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise Rin."

"I know, but it's really starting to bug me. I hate having questions float around in my head like that, especially when I don't know where anything is."

He ignored this. "I promise we'll be there within a couple more minutes. Just close your eyes 'til then."

"...Okay." She closed her eyes and did as she was told. The very instant she did so, the light in her world faded and the tingling in her stomach multiplied, magnifying her restlessness rather than calming her down. Only an actual blindfold would have made things worse.

Then, after a bunch of crackling noises, the car abruptly stopped. Rinoa opened her eyes open and saw nothing but an empty stretch of road as far as her eyes could discern; they were on the road's shoulder. Confused, she turned her head towards him.

"Are you...having car problems?"

"Nope. We're here."

Rinoa blinked. "Where's here?"

"If you look on your right where there are all of those trees, the frozen pond we slid on for our first date is there once you walk past that clearing. This is just another way of getting there. It's takes a little longer but the path makes for a nice stroll."

The light bulb inside her head turned on. "Oh, I see."

Grabbing the door's latch, Rinoa pulled on it to get out, eagerly awaiting the fun-filled prospect of talking and sliding around. It wouldn't budge. Figuring it was jammed or something, she turned to face him again. He wasn't out of the car either.

"Hey Tyler, could you help me unlock the door? I think it's stuck."

"In a moment. There's something I have to take care of first."

Rinoa grinned mischievously. "Oh, and what may _that_ be?"

He unbuckled himself and leaned over to her side. "You."

Without warning, his lips met with hers sweetly and before she knew it, her back was pressed against the door as he begun leaning more on her side of the car and as the kiss deepened into something a little more forceful on his part. A few moments later, they ended kiss mutually, despite the fact Rinoa felt a bit of reluctance on his end to finish it.

Her mischievous grin was back. "Are you finished taking care of me to unlock the door? I'm dying to slide around again."

Now he was the one with the devilish grin on. "If you're really adamant about that, I _suppose_ I could."

Rinoa clasped her hands together and pouted her lips cutely. "_Please...?_"

"...Okay."

With a couple of simple movements, he fixed the door and it opened effortlessly when she tugged on the handle afterwards.

"_...Thank yooou!_" she sweetly chanted in a sing-song voice, putting one foot on the outside ground.

"No prob." Before she was out of the car entirely, he gave her another small peck on the cheek. She giggled slightly.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"Hey, I was starting to wonder when you two were going to show up. But that doesn't matter since you're here now, come in, come in."

After the warm welcome Adrienne gave them, both Rinoa and Tyler took off their shoes and followed her into the enormous living room directly on the left, where the party was undoubtedly taking place. On the long wall which faced them, there was a huge plasma TV flanked by two long coffee tables littered with all sorts of drinks, bowls of snacks and whatnot, cups and napkins. Facing all of this on the other side was an equally enormous black leather couch, and on the wall furthest away, there was another leather couch along with a lively game of human pretzel being played on the floor in front of it. A stereo was blasting in the far left corner.

Even with the smaller amount of people invited to the party, it didn't seem to detract from the overall liveliness and excitement Rinoa noticed in the room. All of the couches were occupied with people conversing happily with one another, the television showing the live coverage for the annual New Year's Eve concert and ball drop from Deling city, the aforementioned game going on, which seemed to be eliciting plenty of laughs and contorted positions, and there was just a generally festive atmosphere about the place.

"Just help yourselves to anything on the tables and either of you guys need help with something, don't hesitate to ask me or birthday boy playing human pretzel over there."

Tyler nodded before turning towards Rinoa. "I'm going to get something to drink; do you want me to grab you anything?"

She shrugged. "Sure, whatever looks good."

With another simple nod, he left to go to one of the tables. And that's when Adrienne pulled her aside.

"_You've got yourself quite the catch there Rin._" she whispered discreetly to her, casually eying the current scene. "_I wasn't expecting __**-that-**__ from your description._"

"_Well, before the first date, neither was I. He looks worlds different without the glasses he used to have._"

"_So I take it you're happy with him from your phone call the other day?_"

"_Yeah, I am._"

"_That's good._" When she saw him coming back, Rinoa noticed that she wasn't talking at whisper level anymore. "Well, it looks like I have to restock the tables again. I'll be back soon."

Then, the raven-haired girl could have sworn that Adrienne had left with a wink. Rubbing her eyes meticulously afterwards, it kind of came as a bit of a shock when she reopened them later, only to have Tyler directly in front of her, red plastic cups in both hands.

He gave her the cup from his left hand. The cup's contents had a pinkish-red liquid in it. "I hope a vodka cooler's okay. It's pretty much the only thing on the thing besides beer on the table when I was over there."

She accepted the cup. "That's fine. Thanks."

'_...I guess she wasn't lying about that._'

His face broke into a relieved grin. "So I take it you enjoyed my little surprise?"

Rinoa nodded. "I did. The ice sliding along with those other things was really fun. I feel bad for coming so late to the party though."

"Don't worry about it, a New Year's Eve party only picks up after the clock strikes twelve. We got here with a good half-hour to spare, so it's all good."

"I suppose you have a valid point there. But still..." She lowered her head, looking like she was intently analyzing her reflection in the cup. "Today's her birthday too. Who knows what we missed earlier. I didn't even get to say happy birthday to her yet."

"Hey," He brought her head upward with his free hand. She looked up at him as if no one else mattered in the room. "-cheer up. At least we're here now right?"

"Yeah, but I still feel ba-" Just before she could finish her sentence, he cut her off with yet another kiss. Eyes widening, she instinctively broke away. He tilted his head and eyed her quizzically.

"I don't mind you trying to make me feel better but.." Rinoa grimaced. "-Not here."

Casually putting his cup on the window ledge behind her, he repeated, "—_Not here?_"

She put her cup on the ledge too. "Not here."

"So...you wouldn't mind it if I tried _cheering you up_ somewhere else?"

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows for a split-second before deciphering what he actually meant. Then she replied with a, "Not at all."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Friday, December 31__st__ –_

_...I was wrong about everything._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Saturday, January 1st_ –

_Nothing matters anymore. Nothing._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Sunday, January 2nd –_

_Why is it that the things we think are most real in life just end up being the biggest lies? Why? Can someone explain the logic behind all of this to me?_

_Hyne...my phone's going off again. Maybe I'll answer it this time._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Curled up like a cocoon in bed, Rinoa attempted to reach for the phone by poking an arm out from under the covers and blindly feeling around the surface of the nightstand for damn thing. She grabbed it just in time.

"...Who is it?" she answered sourly.

"_-Your assignment partner._"

Rinoa bolted upwards. "-Squall?"

"._..It's not like I have any other name._"

"So you're back in Balamb then?"

A tired sigh could be heard on the other end. "_Yes...why do you think I went out of my way to find this number?_"

"Okay, okay...point taken. So when and where did you want me to give you the pages?"

"_Two o'clock at the town library. Sharp._"

"...I'll be there then."

"_Good._"

_Click! Beep... Beep..._

After getting out of bed, Rinoa quickly glanced at her watch and realized that she only had an hour to get dressed, have all of her stuff there and to actually _get_ down to the library.

'_Well, nothing I can do about that other than to just do it._'

And so she started by swapping her clothes at the speed of light, and then proceeded to rummage through the piles of papers on her dresser to find the necessary pages. But then she stopped altogether as another, completely unrelated though came to mind. Just as quickly as she stopped, she started again, with even more energy and vigour.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

How she managed to be two minutes early in spite of the overwhelming odds, she didn't know. She could have been transported by means of something extraordinary like a Chocobo and she still wouldn't have remembered a thing. All Rinoa knew was that she in the town library, sitting quietly at a table, waiting for the long-gone Squall Leonhart to appear before her eyes and coldly scrutinize her section of the assignment.

Precisely a minute before the scheduled time, he came within her range of vision, descending the miniature set of steps right in front of the table, and carelessly sat himself down on the chair beside her. Taking out various papers from his knapsack and putting them on the table, he faintly acknowledged her presence at that moment. But Hyne, did he ever look worse for wear in her opinion. His face looked thinner, there were prominent dark circles under his eyes and now that she thought of it, he did sound a little hoarse on the phone earlier.

'_Maybe Esthar didn't agree with him for...whatever he was there for.'_

Ignoring this, Rinoa dug through her own bag to find the pages. When found them, she put them on the table, away from the others he had on there and slid them in his direction.

"Here's my part Squall." she spoke softly. He took the pages. "If there's anything wrong, don't hesitate to tell me and I'll redo it."

After scanning them over rapidly, he was about to say something when he had to stifle an errant yawn.

"...It's fine."

As he was putting the pages along with the others on the table, which, she assumed, was the rest of the project, she murmured a simple and scarcely audible, _'good'_.

Then she paused for a second before attempting to vocalize the other thing she wanted to say.

"Um...Squall?"

He was absorbed with arranging the papers properly. Not that he would know, but, Rinoa bit her lip nervously, who was unsure of what to do.

...That was, until the decisive voice inside her head finally spoke up. '_If he leaves before you get the chance to say something, you'll never get the same opportunity to do this ever again Rinoa. It has to be now._'

"Squall..." Still nothing. She resorted to putting her hand down on top of the stack of papers he had between his hands. He looked up at her just as annoyed as the first time she tried something drastic to get his attention. Nevertheless, she continued. "I need your help."

With a solemn gaze, he said nothing. Barely finding the strength to compete with the intensity of his glare, Rinoa focused on her words.

"I know this'll sound kind of out of the blue to you, and I know I'm going out on a limb, but ...I need your help to get rid of the wrong idea people have of me. ...I know that people treat you differently because they have all of these preconceived ideas about you so I thought that...maybe you had enough experience being in a similar position to help me out here."

He remained silent, but deep down; something was telling her that he was listening.

Squall narrowed his eyes. "...And why should I? You're nothing but one of those superficial girls whose only concern in life revolves around looks and gossip...or whatever it is you people do."

"See, you just proved my point!" she countered hotly. "That's what everyone _thinks_ I am. ...And I hate it. I'm not a shallow airhead; I'm a real person with thoughts and feelings."

"Fine, so you_ claim,_ but what do you want_ me_ to do about it? I'm in no position to change what other people think of you."

"Okay, so maybe you wouldn't be able to change what people think directly, but, if you had the same idea as everyone else, you could tell me the major things that might be leading people to believe that I'm like that and you could maybe teach me how to cope with some things too. ...Does that make more sense?"

Sighing, he let go of the bundle of papers and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Theoretically, I could. But why should I?"

She was about to answer with something when a bright red mark on top of the papers caught her attention. "-You're failing Lit?"

He hastily shoved the papers into his bag. "...You're not supposed to see that."

"Well whether I see it or not doesn't hide the fact that you're still failing." she pointed out dryly. Then an idea came to mind. "Say, since I'm doing well in that class, what if I helped you with your work in exchange for helping me out with this stuff?"

"...My answer is still no."

"Well, you can't graduate Grade 12 if you don't pass that class."

He finally caved in. "...Fine, I'll help you. Just don't remind me about that."

Right after the words had finally registered in her ears, Rinoa had a meek, but meaningful smile on.

"Thank you so very much, you don't know how much this means to me. You won't regret it Squall."

He waved her off. "Yeah, yeah, whatever."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments –** Well, I hope you guys are happy with the conclusion of this extra-long chappy. I resisted all urges to split it up in two. Honestly, I was getting tired of not delivering on my promises, so...that pretty-well explains everything. Sorry if the ending was a tad rushed though, I didn't want it to drag on too much considering the length.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this.

_-Emerald-Latias_


	12. Chapter XI – Cracked Carapace

**Author's Notes – **Well, looky there, I not only managed to update within a span of two weeks, I also hit the turning point I'd been mentioning for the past decade or so. Okay, so I'm exaggerating about that last part but... I can't help but to be happy about finally getting to do that. Well, I'd better keep the progress goin'!

Oh, and by the way, if you're reading the first few lines and thinking, '_What the hell?_'. You probably missed Chapter 10. I updated really fast for a change.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XI – Cracked Carapace**

_-_

_I struggle just to find a better way,  
So here we are,  
Fighting and trying to hide the scars,  
I'll be home tonight,  
Take a breath and softly say goodbye._

_**-Breaking Benjamin, Here We Are.**_

-

_Sunday, January 2nd (continued) –_

_Okay, I know I have to come clean about the whole New Year's Eve thing before I can move on and write about anything else, but I ...can't. I just can't. I thought I was back to my old self, but after mulling it over and over, that couldn't be any further than the truth. The old me wouldn't have gone about it that way and gotten myself entangled that far into such big misunderstanding. At least I got myself out of it before I royally screwed up again. -That much I learned from last time. Hyne, I'm so stupid, I foolishly missed all of the warning signs that I should have easily picked up on. I guess I'm back to square one again. I should have realized that straining myself to be overly-social like that was going to give me nothing but trouble._

–_Even more so when it started to come naturally._

_Sure, I was like that two years ago, or something like that two years ago, but now, I'm convinced that that period in my life should be shut, closed and made unattainable as far as I'm concerned. Hyne, why don't I forget about the last few months while I'm at it too? And why don't I simply accept the fact that I'm a different person now and always will be? I wasn't even being me anyway; I was just the by-product of a clique of girls and got slapped with the same stereotype in the process. –Pretty, petty and superficial._

_Wait... did I just call myself pretty? Ooh...it's even gotten into my journal for God sakes! Ugh..I'm pathetic._

_Come to think of it, one of the only times I was acting the least bit like myself around them was during the moments I was alone with Ivy. The focus wasn't on me then and I was trying my best to be helpful and supportive - at least I know that's a real part of me. The sad part is that I can't even say the same for any of the times I was with Adrienne. She has this way of talking that never failed to make me think that she always knew what's best, like a sort of guardian figure. I'm not trying to put her down or anything because I know she always meant well, but...I think I took it far too much like gospel for my own good when I should have took it with a grain of salt instead. But then again, I'd be lying to myself if I didn't admit that I subconsciously wanted to be more like her in addition to fitting in again._

_Hyne, I never thought I'd see the day where I'd actually admit that I'd given into peer pressure. For the longest while, I always thought that it was a kind of myth or that it only applied to getting roped into doing drugs, smoking, drinking and all of those other typical vices they always used for the ads that played on TV. _

_Well, at least I'll get all of the misconceptions out of the way now that I have Squall to help me. Gee...this is the kind of thing that really makes me think that life can be so strange sometimes. One minute, you're willing to be against the tide, saying that you'll make your own opinion on people by your own thoughts and impressions, the next, you cave into the idea that maybe, just maybe, they were right for a moment __**before**__ you ultimately go back to your original stance on the matter, thinking that going with the majority has blind sighted you from the finer discrepancies in their opinion. That and the fact that it was only a couple of weeks ago where I didn't want to be with him in a library made it weird too._

_Sometimes I wonder why I hadn't waited another day so that I could just ask Seifer to help me with this instead of Squall. Especially since it would theoretically be __**a lot**__ easier, given that he's in a similar situation and that we get along a lot better for that matter. -But then I always come back to the same conclusion, that that would be the very thing that would make what I set out to do __**that**__ much more difficult. Why? Well..._

_a) Other than maybe Ivy (possibly Ryan too), he more or less sees me way I actually am without being under anyone's influence, so he couldn't possibly understand the problem at hand._

_b) Squall is universally treated and talked about in a biased and unfair light, so he would have more experience in what I'm going through to help me, whereas Seifer only has that kind of problem with Ryan, Adrienne and the gang. Not to mention, Squall is aware of the cruel treatment he gets when I'm not sure if Seifer knows about it._

_c) Taking the earlier points into account, Squall would be able to point out the things that make me seem like one of them and Seifer wouldn't be able to since I didn't give him that impression like I did everyone else._

_I just hope this goes well, I mean, I did think of this rather quickly and who knows what could happen because of that? No matter how hard I try, I keep on getting pictures of the worst case scenarios in my head. I don't know anymore...maybe I should just call the whole thing off. Squall will probably be happy about that considering he was ultra-reluctant to help me in the first place until I used his failing Lit mark on the report card that he accidentally pulled out against him... Damn, I can't back out then. I don't want to be a cold-hearted bit- err..meany and not help him when I said I would. Then he'd really start believing that I'm a selfish airhead if I pulled that and, now that I think of it, who knows if he'd use what I said against me in that scenario._

_I suppose this means that there's no going back now. I'm reinventing me. ...And becoming a part-time Lit teacher. _

_Bad joke, Rinoa. Bad joke._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After ascending the bus's steps the next morning, Rinoa scanned the aisle for a relatively good place to sit, while trying to remember the only piece of advice Squall gave her yesterday, '_I don't care what you do for the next few weeks, just don't make what you're trying to do obvious. The key to this is gradual change. You'll get fewer questions that way._'

Walking down the aisle, she picked an appropriate spot to sit at, lucking out in the respect that the people already seated made her choice all the more inconspicuous. She sat on the seat diagonally-across from Adrienne.

"Hey, Rin." the aforementioned girl called out to her. Rinoa turned her head behind her. "What happened at the party? I didn't see you all night."

She flinched. '_No, no, no...I can't answer that. I need a diversion, an excuse, anything. Hyne, I wish I had laryngitis right now.._'

'_Wait, I never said anything yet, did I? Maybe I could..._'

Rinoa crudely and repeatedly pointed at her throat.

Adrienne furrowed her eyebrows. "...You lost your voice?"

The other girl nodded her head almost violently.

"Oh, I'll talk to you later when you've got it back then."

And with that, Rinoa turned her head to face the window again where she secretly sighed in quiet relief.

'_Phew...that was a close one._'

'_I can't believe it worked though._'

'_I think if I keep the act up until Lit, I'll be okay._'

'..._Maybe I'll be able to think of a plausible excuse by then._'

Aimlessly tracing random patterns on the bus's fogged-up windows, she played the whole situation from Friday over in her head for what had to be the millionth time, looking at the different angles, the thousands upon thousands of ways it could have been avoided from the start, the-

Rinoa literally bit her tongue to stop herself from screaming. Instead, she resorted to blotting out the misshapen smiley face she'd drawn on the window. The tiny and newly-formed droplets of collected condensation on the pane seemed to have captured the world surrounding her into an impossibly-small picture; she only accounted for the tiniest of black specks. Wiping the drops from the window completely, the glass regained a proper reflective quality to it when the dewy droplets were gone altogether.

The bus stopped and seconds later, her body seized up after hearing cold and ominous footsteps behind her.

"_**-This a better place?"**_

_**She nodded her head. "Yes."**_

"_**Good." He leaned closer and...**_

The footsteps echoed past; she was able to breathe again.

'_Hyne...I don't feel well. Maybe I should skip first altogether and see Dr. Kadowaki for this stomach ache._'

'_Yeah...that's a good idea. That'll solve everything._'

Wiping the windows again, Rinoa peered at the faceless, uniform houses they were now passing.

'_At least ..I know that this stomach ache can't be foreshadowing anything else._'

Roughly twenty minutes later, Rinoa was sitting on a vacant bed in the infirmary. There, sitting on a chair beside it, Dr. Kadowaki had started to ask her some questions to figure out what was the probable culprit in all of this.

"So...you say that this stomach ache approximately started ...towards the end of the bus ride to the Garden?"

"Yes. I kind of have a bit of a headache too, right above my eyes." she clarified furthermore, tracing her finger along the affected area. The sound of scribbles could be heard as the good doctor was furtively taking notes on her clipboard.

"Hm." Dr. Kadowaki stopped writing. "Did you do anything that could have possibly triggered any motion sickness?"

"No. I was just looking out of the window."

She nodded in acknowledgement. "Have you eaten anything out of the ordinary that may have upset your stomach or anything known to give you digestive problems?"

Rinoa shifted a little on the bed. "No."

"Are you currently experiencing any other symptoms outside the ones you've already mentioned?"

"Well...I sort of feel a little sluggish. Is that the kind of symptom you were referring to?"

The doctor ignored her last question and shot her a stern look, cutting straight to the chase. "-Have you eaten at all this morning?"

'_Crap._'

She shifted again. "_Err_...no."

Dr. Kadowaki got up. "Well there's your problem right there." she stated brusquely before walking over to her desk on the other side of the room and putting the clipboard on its surface. She came back right after. "Without food in your system, your whole body slows down, causing problems along the way such as lethargy, headaches _and_ stomach aches."

She would have rolled her eyes if there wasn't the possibility of getting severely reprimanded.

'_I don't need the lecture. I've been told that so many times I can quote the sermon in my sleep._'

"Here," the doctor tossed her an apple, seemingly out of nowhere, "-eat this and tell me how you feel afterward. I have to attend to my other patient now."

Rinoa nodded, consequently eying the bright red apple. An ironic thought came to mind.

'_Funny, I thought that these things were supposed to keep people away from the doctor, not the other way around. Oh well, sometimes it's better not to ask questions._'

Taking the first bite, the raven-haired teenager didn't feel any better, nor did she feel worse – she was still stuck at mediocre, possibly crummy during the moments where she didn't feel the need to steal a bucket as a precaution. She took another bite. A loud clanking noise was heard on the other side of the divider curtains. Startled, Rinoa dropped her apple; it rolled underneath the fabric partition.

'_Oops._'

She hopped off the bed and casually walked towards the other side. Peeking past the curtain, Rinoa didn't see much, only the doctor bending over to pick up what she must have dropped and the fallen fruit. -That, and a flash of the patient's brown hair. Gravity failed her at that moment; she fell backwards with a resounding clatter.

_**He leaned closer and started kissing her...**_

_**...each kiss more passionate than the last...**_

_**...Pressed against him, she could feel... **_

_**...the rapid heartbeats, his...**_

"_**No." she whispered.**_

Rinoa opened her eyes only to see Dr. Kadowaki staring at her. Behind her, she saw another glimpse of the mystery patient. Her assumption was wrong, which was a huge relief in itself.

"..Are you okay?"

Although the first thing that came to mind was to say that her butt hurt, she figured that that particular response wasn't the one the doctor wanted to necessarily hear. She slowly got up, hanging onto the divider's rod for support.

"I'm fine, a little dizzy though..."

"I think it would be best if you stayed in the infirmary for further observation," She turned towards the other patient, "-the same for goes for you too." She walked over to the desk to pick up the phone. It wasn't long before she set it down though. "I'll be back in a moment so there'd better be no _vanishing acts_. I have to leave to personally justify your absences at the Headmaster's office; looks like nobody got around to fixing the phone over the holidays."

And with that, the doctor briskly walked out of the room and Rinoa quietly sat on the edge of his bed instead of her own.

"So...what are you in for?"

Squall said nothing in response, only rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger with his free hand, the other arm devoted to loosely cradling his stomach. From a closer perspective, she could tell that he looked even worse than yesterday. He was much paler and his face was mottled with undertones of green. Still not saying anything, he lied down on his side.

Rinoa got up. It was easy to tell that he wasn't going to be saying much anyway, not in that state. "Do you want me to put a bucket by the side of the bed?"

The grumble she heard could be loosely interpreted as a no.

She walked past the curtain and to her own bed where she lied on her back, absentmindedly eying the ceiling, the palms of her hands placed directly underneath her head. She could still feel the volatile pangs emanating from her head and stomach, but now that she was lying on the bed, they felt a little more tolerable, like the sterile atmosphere of the infirmary had medicinal properties of its own.

Minutes later, the door creaked open and Rinoa knew that the portly doctor must have walked through, judging by the sound of her decided and purposeful footsteps. It wasn't long before she heard talking from the other side of the curtain again, this time more clearly than the last.

"_Okay, now that that issue has been resolved, I have to ask you some more questions before you can go to sleep._"

Rinoa heard some shifting. Presumably, it was Squall getting back up. Now turned on to her side, she watched the silhouettes move periodically. She couldn't help herself, she was curious.

The doctor's voice was heard again. "_So you said that you were in Esthar for the last couple of weeks?_"

"_...Yes._" he tersely answered, his voice sounding far more gravelly than she remembered. He must have been really sick.

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. '_Why did he come to school then?_'

"_Have you been to any places or touched any surfaces that may have appeared unclean?"_

"_...I was visiting someone in a hospital. I think that qualifies."_

The raven-haired girl rolled onto her back for a second. '_...I never would have guessed that he visited a hospital. I wonder who he could have been visiting._'

"_You're right, that would qualify. Alright, I have no more questions for you. I'll be giving you some pills to quell the nausea shortly after I quickly check up on my other patient. Once I've done that, you may rest._"

Some more rustling and footsteps could be heard. It wasn't long before Dr. Kadowaki was now at her bedside. Rinoa sat up straight.

The doctor gave her a wry look and handed her a granola bar. "Eat this and tell me how you feel afterward. Hopefully this will be easier to hold than the apple."

As the doctor left to the other side of the room again, Rinoa peeled back the bar's wrapper and took a bite.

"_Ooh..._" she moaned. The granola didn't agree with her at all and it seemingly sunk to the bottom of her stomach like a brick.

She hastily put the rest of the bar on the nearby nightstand and curled up into a little ball on the bed. It looked like Squall wasn't the only person who was going to need medicine today.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Judging from her watch, it must have been halfway through third when she was released from the infirmary, _**correction**_, it must have been halfway through third was when she _and_ Squall were both released from the infirmary.

After a couple of hours of resting on their respective beds, conked out from the meds they'd received, Dr. Kadowaki had informed them both that she needed to make room for some more patients. That, and there was nothing else she could really do for them at this point in time if they still felt a little sick. When she was told this, Rinoa understood completely; she was feeling much better anyway. As for Squall...she wasn't too sure if she could say the same for him. At least his face wasn't green anymore.

They were walking along the corridor past the infirmary when she decided to be brave and say something to fill the silence.

"Are you going to third?"

She took his silence as a no.

"Yeah, I suppose there's no point." she mumbled listlessly. Rinoa turned her head slightly. "Did you want to go to the library so I can start helping you with your Lit work? ...Or figure something out at least."

Surprisingly enough, he answered. ".._.Might as well._"

Rinoa blinked. She'd been expecting another silence, or a vocal '_No._' if she was lucky, not a half-hearted, '._..Might as well._'

"Okay. While we're walking there, are there any things in particular that you need work on, or is it spread out?"

Another patch of silence – she wasn't surprised by this.

'_Oh well. I can't expect miracles here. I guess the work he shows me will speak for itself._'

By the time they were past the main elevators in the main circular hallway, Rinoa remembered something.

"Hey, I was just wondering... was the only reason you came to school today was to hand in the assignment?" she asked curiously. Maybe this was why he came to school even though he was so sick.

He shot her an annoyed stare. "...Why are you asking me that?"

"Because you look really sick."

"So? A school day is a school day. It doesn't matter what you look or feel like, you go."

'_Great, he only starts talking when I piss him off. This'll be a __**wonderful**__ agreement we've got here._' she mused sarcastically. '_This won't go anywhere unless if I can start talking to him without it being as hard as pulling teeth._'

"So I take it you didn't go to the infirmary voluntarily then?"

"...I never go there voluntarily."

"Okay." Rinoa stopped talking right then and there; making any effort into having a semi-decent conversation with him was going to be futile at this point. As far as the agreement was concerned, he was probably going to be all business. Not that she expected any different.

Now passing through the library doors, Rinoa consciously picked a far away table where nobody would easily spot them together. When they were finally sitting at that said table, he started systematically taking things out of his knapsack. Most of it loose papers with the occasional coil notebook. Once he was done doing this, he took all of the random papers and made them into a neat stack, eventually setting it all down beside the notebooks. She was stunned by his orderliness.

"So...um...what do you have trouble with?" she stammered, intimidated by the weight of his gaze. She assumed that he wasn't pleased with the idea of doing badly in a class, considering how he always seemed so studious all the time. But on the other hand, he looked equally as serious about this too.

Reluctantly, he started picking out some of the pages from the pile and then he slid them straight across, to her end of the table. Rinoa took the stack and leafed through the dismally-graded papers quickly, noticing straightaway that almost all of them had to do with oral evaluation marks, grades for class participation or the creative writing unit they'd had in November.

She looked up at him. "So...you don't have any problems with the reading units and grammar quizzes?"

"No. I normally get very high grades on those."

"So your problem has to do with...um..."

She left her sentence hanging in mid-sentence. It wasn't easy thinking of a polite way to tell Squall Leonhart that he sucked at public speaking, being creative and participating in class.

He groaned. "...You don't have to dance around the subject, I'm already aware of what I can't do well. I just want to know how to improve enough so that I don't have to stay for an extra year on top of this one."

Rinoa blinked. "I didn't know that this was an extra year for you. Did this class give you enough trouble last year?"

"No. The Garden didn't offer some of the course I needed until this year."

"Oh. So you're eighteen?"

Squall sighed. "...Yes, but that's irrelevant."

"Oh, sorry." she apologized. "So what do you want to work on first?"

He shrugged. "Whatever. It doesn't matter." he replied passively.

"Well, seeing as we don't have much time, we could start working on your oral communication skills..._if you speak very softly, that is._"

Squall rolled his eyes and muttered, "..._I should have figured you were going to say that just to spite me and the fact that we're in a library._"

"_Ah, ah, ah._" she chided. "You have to look at your audience when you're addressing them. Besides, being in a library hasn't stopped you from verbally chewing me out before."

He glared at her.

"Okay, okay, we'll work on your creative writing today."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Wow. I'm impressed. This has been the second time ever where I've updated this fast. Cool.

Anyways, I hope that this chapter wasn't too boring. I know that it's kind of hard following up Chapter 10. Oh well. You can't have constant drama all the time or else it would get too soap-opera like. Meh. At least you guys can enjoy the fact that I didn't hide Squall from you like I tend to do in this fic for some reason. Anyways...

_-Review, review review!_

Oops, did I get a random bout of a fanfiction author's version of Tourette's or something?

...Better not answer that.

_-Emerald-Latias_


	13. Chapter XII – Eclectic Lessons

**Author's Notes – **I never cease to surprise myself. I mean, first there was the gargantuan chapter I uploaded at three thirty in the morning, next, I update three days later, what's next? Updating three days later at three thirty in the morning? Nah, I don't fancy the idea of writing like my head's cut off. Oh well. I can't be crazy all the time.

Oh, speaking of crazy, I randomly found a site that makes anagrams out of text you put in and it rearranges the letters into something totally different (if you guys want the site, just PM me). So here are the more interesting ones that came out:

Rob Thomas (the lead singer for the band I used for this chapter's song) – **Bathrooms.**

Emerald Latias – **Alert maladies.**

Reinventing Me – **Me intervening.**

Squall Leonhart – **Hell! Snarl quota.**

_Drum roll please..._

Squall Leonhart loves Rinoa – **A tranquil, love-lorn asshole.**

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XII – Eclectic Lessons**

_-_

_So are you going to stand there, are you going to help me out?  
We need to be together now,  
I need you now; do you think you can cope?  
You figured me out, that I'm lost and I'm hopeless,  
I'm bleeding and broken, though I've never spoken,  
I come undone in this mad season._

_**-Matchbox Twenty, Mad Season.**_

-

"_Okay, okay, we'll work on your creative writing today."_

His glare lessened and Rinoa felt safe enough to continue. She leafed through the bundle of pages again and plucked out the ones from the creative unit, skimming each one over to get the gist of the problem here. She withheld a cringe. It looked like she'd have to take drastic measures; it wasn't going to be pretty by any stretch of the imagination.

"...Well?"

She set down the sheaf and tucked a stand of hair behind her ear, trying to think of more ways to stall but failing miserably. Time was up and he was expecting an answer. The inevitable had to occur.

"These papers are very..._dry._"

He nodded and sat there patiently, waiting for her to follow-up. Rinoa had to refrain from giving him a bemused look. It wasn't too often when somebody looked up to her like an authority figure on the answers, let alone being looked up to. Period. More often than not, she was the one in Squall's position, not the one she was in now.

'_...Maybe this is his first time on the other side of the fence too?'_

Taking a silent breath, Rinoa was going to be humble in her current position of power and be a good teacher, knowing full well how hard it was and still is for anyone to admit, willingly or not, that they needed extra help for something.

"..._And_ the whole point of creative writing is to let your imagination fill the page." she continued more confidently, finally hitting her stride. "And I think I have just the thing to help you do that."

"...Such as?"

'-_Such as what I brought to kill time during lunch. Thank Hyne for convenient coincidences; I don't know what I would have done otherwise. Well, here goes nothing..._'

"I'm going to ask you to write different kinds of words one by one and after I give you enough, I put them in the spaces they're supposed to be in for this small, pre-made paragraph that I have and then I read it out loud to you."

Squall looked at her sceptically. "-And what does that have to do with creative writing when I'm not even writing anything?"

"Because, I have to break you from your rut before we can go any further. Just by looking them over, the first thing I noticed was that your papers were so methodical and serious that there isn't a speck of creativity or imagination stopping it from sounding so clinical. By making you do this, it'll help you realize that you're capable of making something interesting just by using the right words."

He caved in. "Fine. ...What's the requisite to pass?"

Rinoa blinked. "Requisite?"

He gave her an annoyed look. "...What is it that I have to be able to do in order to pass?" he simplified, barely managing to contain the apparent aggravation in his tone.

"The requisite to pass is not to ask me what the requisite to pass is." she asserted boldly. That shut him up. -Or would have...if he'd actually been saying something at that moment..._err_..._yeah._

She dug out a pencil, a web site print-off, a lined page and pen from her own bag and slid the last two onto his side of the table. He accepted both things but his annoyed look turned into a perplexed one. Sensing this shift, she went to elaborate further.

"The whole point of this is to broaden your mind so I can't grade you; it wouldn't be fair to pass judgement on that. The only thing I'm going to pay attention to is whether or not you're getting comfortable with the idea, and if I think that you are, we'll move onto something else."

Face wiped from all expression, Squall had the pen readied in his right hand. "...Fair enough."

Rinoa nodded, getting her own things ready. "Okay. Write down the first adjective that comes to mind for your first word."

He obediently wrote something down.

"For the second word, pick a noun."

Once again, he did as he was told. For the next thirteen words that followed the first two, he did the exact same thing for all of them, no flicker of deviation whatsoever. Rinoa was impressed by the speed and efficiency at which he thought of the words he wanted to put down. Whenever she did one of these fill-in-the-blank word games, she always had the hardest time on deciding which ones to use past the sixth word.

"-And you're done." she informed him. "You can give me your list now."

As expected, he slid the paper back to her. Now in her hands, she decided to look at the kinds of words he picked before putting them into the anecdote-like paragraph. Her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_1. Adjective – Organized  
2. Noun – Field Exam  
3. Adverb – Cautiously  
4. Verb ending in "ING" – Planning  
5. Plural Noun – Rules  
6. Plural Noun – Instructions  
7. Noun – Analysis  
8. Verb – Work  
9. Adjective – Logical  
10. Adjective – Orderly  
11. Verb ending in "ING" – Abiding  
12. Plural Noun – Regulations  
13. Adjective – Methodical  
14. Noun – Requisite  
15. Plural Noun – Evaluations_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

When her eyebrows came back down, she furrowed them and looked at him. "-Were you trying to stick it to me?"

"...No. I simply wrote what came to mind." he replied earnestly.

She wanted to mentally slap herself. '_Sure, leave it up to him to unknowingly find a way to make the craziest word game I know of serious. Unbelievable._'

Systematically jotting down his answers into their corresponding spaces, Rinoa sighed. "I may not be passing or failing you for this, but I hope you know that it's this kind of thinking that's killing your creative writing mark. Hyne, I think I would have been happier if you would have written 'boobs', 'drunk' and 'pee' like everyone else does with these things." She finally set down her pencil. "You want to hear the paragraph your words made?"

He shrugged half-heartedly. "It's not like I have a choice."

"Okay. Here it goes. When you pack for an _**organized**_ trip, there are plenty of things to keep in _**field exam. **_The first thing is to always remember to avoid _**cautiously**_ _**planning**_ if you put your _**rules**_ near your _**instructions**_. If you're not careful, the _**analysis **_you're using to _**work **_it all in might become too _**logical**_, or worse, _**orderly**_. Once all of your _**abiding**_ is done, make sure to put all of your _**regulations **_are put in a _**methodical**_ place where the _**requisite **_won't find it because it's never fun to try to find your missing _**evaluations **_at the last minute."

After she put down the page, Rinoa couldn't help but exchange blank, but awkward looks with Squall; neither quite knew what to say. She had a feeling in the pit of her stomach that they were thinking the same thing however.

..._What the hell._

Before she could let another uncomfortable pass between them, she crumpled the paper and banished it from sight.

"Okay... we're going to have to do something else because that _obviously_ didn't work."

'_More like it turned out funny in a ridiculous way despite the overwhelming odds... -Which __**really**__ isn't helping me any..._'

Flipping over the list paper he'd given her, she started hastily writing on it; a jolt of an idea had struck her noggin. Within seconds, she gave it back to him. His head tilted downwards to eye the words on the page quizzically before looking up again. Rinoa could just sense the confusion radiating from his gaze. And sure enough, this theory was proven valid not even two seconds later.

"...What do you want me to do?"

"Write something using those words I wrote on the top of the page."

He still had this confused look about him. "—Like what?"

"The _what_ is up to you. As long as you use all of the words creatively, it doesn't matter."

Just like before, he went to work immediately. For the lengthiest of moments, Rinoa couldn't help but toy with the idea that he might have been a robot in disguise. But then again, she reasoned to herself, robots didn't have the capacity to scowl at you.

_Oops._

She meekly took the page he'd been trying to give her for the past minute, attempting to not draw anymore attention on herself anymore. Hm. Maybe he was a robot. After all, who finished assignments that earl...

'_-Nevermind Rinoa. Just read what he wrote._'

'_Hyne, I hope this turns out better than the word game..._'

Keeping one eye closed and the page a fair distance away, she started to read the composition hesitantly. If this didn't show the tiniest indication of creativity, she'd have to resort to Plan C. And if she had to do that, it wasn't going to be pretty –it was what she'd originally planned to do before opting for the other, less embarrassing alternatives she thought of at the last minute.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Lost – Field – Waiting – Struggle – Change – Blue_

_He was lost in a field. Passively waiting didn't help him; there was no one coming to find him. His struggle worsened as time went on because of his foolish stubbornness. He never changed his mind after all those days he spent alone in that field, still standing there idly, still waiting for that someone to find him. By the time he finally came around, it was too late. His blue sky turned black._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

For the second time today, Rinoa's eyebrows vanished into her hairline. She looked at him in disbelief.

"...Why are you looking at me like that?" he questioned, "-Was it because I wrote _changed_ instead of _change_?"

"_No, no, no_..._it's just that-_" she stammered before regaining composure again. "-it's good. Really good. How come your other creative assignment papers aren't like that?"

"-You gave me a more specified idea of what you were looking for than the assignments we get. I do better when I know what's expected of me than if I was allowed to do _whatever_ since...I'm not very imaginative to start with."

"Yeah, I suppose it's kind of hard when you don't know what to think of. And Instructor Kolp is _really _bad for giving us '_write whatever you want_' stuff." Rinoa commented. "So, if we ever get anything like that again in the meantime, I'll give you some extra guidelines. And if you think you need more help, I can look it over before you hand it in if you want."

He demurely nodded. "...I'd appreciate that."

Despite her best efforts at concealing it, she couldn't help but sport a partially stunned look on her face after hearing his last words.

"It's...no problem. Later on, we'll try to work on your difficulty with thinking of an initial topic for these kinds of things though. It's the only problem that's really dragging your grade down writing-wise as far as I can see – now that you've shown me that you're capable writing something captivating and not so clinical, that is."

When he nodded again in comprehension, Rinoa felt more at ease. 'Phew..._I'm so glad that this is working out a lot better than I envisioned. I was expecting him to fight me every step of the way.'_

'_Squall sure surprised me there. Especially with that second exercise, I wasn't counting on reading something so... imaginative and metaphorically-complex like that.' _

'_Then again, it's just like he said – he's better at doing work with stricter boundaries imposed on him. Still, I can't help but wonder how he wrote it so fast though. Did the words I picked remind him of something? Maybe I should ask._'

She quickly consulted her watch. There was still time for posing a question. "Um, just out of curiosity Squall, how did you manage to do that second exercise I gave you so fast?"

"I'm not sure of that myself." he intoned passively with a shrug. "I just wrote whatever came to mind that went with what you were looking for."

"So it was it one of those, _'I wrote something and ran with it' _moments for you?"

"I guess."

"...I see." She paused in momentary reflection. Should she add something teacher-like? Yeah, she should. "Well, I suppose that there's nothing wrong in that, but if you find yourself doing that for an assignment, just remember to reread it after. You'd be surprised at how often it doesn't make sense the second time around. Take it from someone who's been there and done that."

"...I'll keep that in mind."

"So...do you have any other questions about creative writing?"

He kept silent and looked uninterested. If that wasn't a glaring, non-verbal signal for a 'no', Rinoa didn't know what was.

'_Well, it looks like I won't need to spring Plan C on him. Then again...' _her mind went on a semi-logical, semi-devious tangent. _'-that doesn't mean I can't improve his creativity quotient.'_

'_Besides, I have to make sure that the last exercise wasn't just a fluke, right?_'

"...So if I asked you to write a paragraph describing a toast getting buttered from the toast's point of view, you'd be able to do it?" she asked coyly, discreetly pulling out another blank page from her knapsack and sliding it to him.

Despite the grumbles under his breath, he did as he was told. Rinoa became faintly suspicious when he finished it in a minute flat in a nearly-illegible scrawl though. The thing read,

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_A toast cannot have a point of view because it does not possess rational thought, or eyes for that matter. Even if it did, the toast would have already been asphyxiated in melted butter before there could have been the slightest chance for it to describe its thoughts on the buttering, given that most people are hungry enough by that time to slather it on quicker than time it actually took them to put the thing on a plate. So logically speaking, there isn't enough time for it to have thoughts or a point of view on the matter, once again assuming that a toast has those things, which it obviously doesn't. _

_...And why I bothered to write any of this, I'll never know. _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Finally finished reading the paragraph, Rinoa somehow managed to suppress her sudden urge to burst out in hysterics over the fact that she had single-handedly made the most serious and no-nonsensical person she'd ever met in her life to argue _rationally_ over something as ridiculous as the possibility of a toast having a point of view or thoughts as it was being buttered.

Wait a minute. Was this the untold power of the teacher? To be able to make their students do the most ridiculous things on the face of the planet? A shiver ran down her spine and the urge to giggle vanished instantly.

No, she rationalized, she'd never been told to do something as ridiculous as she just did to Squall in her life.

_Uh oh,_ not a good sign. It was only her first official day at tutoring and she'd already abused her position. She felt bad; he didn't look too impressed with her.

'_I'd better say sorry to him._'

Giving the page back to him, she immediately went to apologize. "I'm sorry I made you do that, I got carried away. I shouldn't have given you such a stupid thing to do to help you with what you said earlier."

The un-amused look he had on his face remained, but then again, that was to be expected. He grabbed the page and crumpled it.

"...You're right, you shouldn't have." he acidly and tersely replied. "-That's exactly the kind of airhead behaviour that gives people the wrong idea."

_**He pulled away and frowned. "What do you mean 'no'? Wasn't this what you wanted?"**_

_**Trembles coursed through her body as the cold echo of his words reverberated in her head. **_

"_**No, what I wanted was to wish my friend a happy birthday." Then it dawned on her. "-This was the only thing you were after all along, wasn't it?"**_

This statement caught Rinoa off-guard, she hadn't anticipated him to shift the focus onto her problem. But quite frankly, she hadn't expected him to even voluntarily bring that up at any point of time period. She averted her eyes in shame.

"_...I know it is. And it has to go right away, where I won't see it ever again._" she morosely admitted. Rinoa found the strength to look up at him again, albeit meekly. "...Would it be okay if we swapped the teacher-student roles for the last couple of minutes?"

Almost out of nowhere, his expression calmed a little. "...Might as well. It would be a very unfair agreement if I didn't."

Her mouth curved into the tiniest of smiles. "Thank you for understanding. And before we start on anything, I just want to say that I really appreciate the big sacrifice you're making for me, especially since you didn't want to do this until I badgered you enough."

He brushed off the thanks. "It's...fine."

Just by looking at his face and tone of voice, Rinoa had an inkling that he had more on his tongue than the fragmented, two-word sentence he just uttered let on. But in spite of this, she let it go. Hyne only knew what went inside that particular teenager's head.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Once they had both put away all of the pages, pens and pencils, Rinoa and Squall finally swapped their previous roles of teacher and student. Whether it was because the pressure and responsibility of being a temporary authority figure had lifted or not, Rinoa felt a lot more at ease. She also felt a kind of eager energy running through her system as well, like the only thing she wanted to do at that moment was hang onto his every word and soak up every last bit of advice he was going to offer her for her problem.

A smack of familiarity hit her. '_Hm._ _Maybe this is how Squall felt earlier when I was helping him with Lit when he looked so attentive before I opened my mouth. ...I just hope that he's more comfortable in the teaching position than I was._'

But Rinoa never did find out. He got up walked out of sight before he said his first word.

...Maybe consciously picking the furthest table wasn't enough to avoid being spotted after all.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments –** Okay, so maybe I am crazy after all, with the content and all. Aah, but what can you do?

But just for the record, the whole '_describe a toast being buttered from the toast's point of view'_ thing was actually a nod to this book I read about a month ago called **The Gum Thief.** Well...the ways they describe it in the book is far zanier than what I had Squall write. Then again, it's much more realistic to have him argue about the logic behind it than to actually have him do it.

...Whatever, I think I already lost my marbles a long time ago so it really doesn't matter. I'm nuts either way.

_-Emerald-Latias_


	14. Chapter XIII – Trust and Change

**Author's Notes – **Well, I hope you guys had fun with the string of fast updates I've been putting out as of late because...

–Don't worry, I'm not trying to tell you that it's going to stop and I'll be as sluggish as before (note to self – please don't jinx self because of this statement), it's the opposite actually.

I'm going to try my best to keep up this trend. And hopefully...I'll shatter my three-day record update interval sometime.

But that's enough promising and wishing for now, onto the chapter!

****

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XIII – Trust and Change**

_-_

_And how can you learn what's never shown?  
Yeah, you stand here on your own,  
They don't know me,  
'Cause I'm not here._

_**-John Rzeznik, I'm Still Here.**_

-

Hopefully she didn't see, hopefully she didn't hear, hopefully everything will go smoothly and she will pay no heed to the peculiar expression on her face.

...There went all hope that the other girl would be completely unsuspicious and unaware of the events which took place moments before. Well, maybe if she played up the being in the infirmary aspect of this entire thing, there could be a glimmer of hope.

Drawing a silent breath, all Rinoa hoped for was to be able to channel her inner-actress and avoid letting Adrienne get wise to what just happened there. The whole agreement she and Squall had would be compromised if she were to suspect something. Or worse, she'd draw the same conclusion Eden had when they were caught walking together weeks ago.

She paused in mid-thought, realizing what it implied.

It wasn't that Squall was all that bad, well, not as bad he was before; it was just that Rinoa didn't feel like battling against groundless rumours any more. Nor did she want to associate herself or _be_ associated with anybody at the moment, in real life or rumour. She was tired, tired of the kind of misery and mishaps associated to being with someone.

–_**Correction.**_ Rinoa was tired of the kind of misery and mishaps associated to _**her**_ being with someone.

But now wasn't the time to be thinking about that. Now was the time to put on the best damn convincing, '_I'm sick but I still have the energy to smile_' face the world has ever seen. Okay...so maybe she wasn't going to be able to pull that off, but maybe a part of that was still in the cards, right?

_...Right._

As Adrienne got closer to the table, Rinoa realized that the girl approaching her was a little too short, earring-deficient and brown-eyed to be Adrienne. It immediate clicked inside the raven-haired girl's head – it was her own personal doppelganger, Alexis. Rinoa's posture eased. Somehow, the possibility of having to lie to her seemed easier than lying to Adrienne. But then again, what was Alexis doing here in the first place?

"...Hi."

"Hi Alexis." Insert awkward pause. "So...what brings you here, gym finished early?"

"Um...no." She pulled up one of the table's chairs but stopped herself from sitting on it. "-Is it okay if I sit down beside you?"

Rinoa blinked. "Um...yeah, it's okay. Nobody's sitting there."

"Oh, okay.." She sat down. "I, um... didn't want to intrude on what you were doing before with that other person. It sounded like you were talking about something important."

'_Please don't tell me she was around for the whole toast thing..._'

"No, it was ...nothing actually." she lied. "So...um, what's on your mind?"

"...I think someone mistook me for you at lunch."

Rinoa's stomach plummeted. The stomach ache that had disappeared earlier made another appearance, only this time it was worse. It was bad enough where she could have swore that if she did so much as inhaled too deeply, it would trigger a reaction worse than the after-effects of downing a large amount of ipecac in one gulp. So needless to say, Rinoa kept her breaths shallow.

Trying to ignore the turbulent lurches in her stomach, she weakly managed to ask, "..Did something happen?"

"There was the guy who came up to me and asked if it was possible to forgive him about New Year's Eve and...something else after that. ...When I gave him a weird look, he must have realized that he wasn't talking to the right person and left right away. My sister had told me that you had started seeing someone during the holidays, so I thought that maybe it was the same guy."

"What...did he look like?"

"Very tall, brown hair, blue eyes and very, um, how do I put it..."

Rinoa cut in, "-Older looking?"

"Yes. Exactly."

Naturally, an awkward silence swept over them; Alexis had nothing else to explain and Rinoa was lost in thought; how she managed to stay upright and not doubled over from the worsening pangs of her stomach ache was a miracle in itself.

Her breath suddenly came in laboured spurts. "...Did he, mention anything specific...about New Year's Eve?"

Alexis shook her head. "No. ...If anything, I think he was trying to be as vague as possible."

"I see. Thank you for telling me."

'_Oh thank Hyne...she doesn't know.._'

"So...are you going to talk to him?"

The innocently-posed question caught Rinoa off-guard. "...I-I'm sorry, what was that again?" she stammered.

The other girl gave her a bit of an odd look, mirroring Adrienne's when she started squinting her eyes in a certain light. "...I asked if you were going to talk to him, to clear up what happened."

"Oh, um...yeah, I might as well." She got up from her chair and grabbed her knapsack. "See you later then."

Alexis nodded. As she walked out of the library, Rinoa cradled her stomach in vain, absolutely certain that the next place she was going to go had nothing to do with Tyler Reid.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

With one last flush, Rinoa finally got up from her kneeling position near the one of the toilets in the seldom-used main-level bathrooms. She'd been crouched over for the past ten minutes and this was the first moment where she felt it was safe to get up without running the risk of having to go back down again. She had nothing in her stomach left to lose.

Body shaking, Rinoa feverishly used the palm of her hand to wipe away the sweat collected on her clammy face, still trembling a great deal in the moments which passed. Opening the stall's door, she immediately went to run the tap, wash her hands and splash a little water on her face. After she was done, Rinoa didn't turn the knob to end the water's flow. Instead, she peered downward and mindlessly watched the steady stream of water swirl down the drain.

_**He stood there speechless, blank, emotionless eyes locked on hers intently, his frown twitching ever so slightly.**_

"_**W-well..."she started, her voice threatening to give out on her, "-is..it true?"**_

_**He finally broke his silence. "I can't answer you."**_

_**Suddenly, Rinoa felt her face and anger going red-hot. "O-only people with something to hide avoid questions." she intoned hotly, barely managing to keep her newfound emotions in check. "...And you just proved that."**_

_**Just as she was about to leave, the last words of the year pierced through her eardrums. **_

"_**-Well you can't blame me for acting on the impression I got from you."**_

The bell rang and third period had just officially ended. Rinoa turned off the tap and looked at her woe begotten mirror twin; she appeared haggard and exhausted in every sense of the word. A heavy sigh escaped her throat.

'_No, I won't forgive him and pretend that this didn't happen because it __**did**__. I can't forgive the fact that he thought I was nothing but an easy airhead. I...I deserve better._'

She peered down at the pure white sink again; seeing her reflection was just too much.

'_...Hyne, I went from trying to be social and finding trouble to trouble finding me because I was trying to be social. This whole situation just...turned itself on its head. –Which is why I need to get rid of this misconception everyone has of me as soon as possible. I want people seeing me as me, not somebody else._'

She took another glance at herself in the mirror. The figure peering back at her still looked tired but her eyes carried a glimmer of determination they didn't possess earlier. A glimmer she so sorely hoped would help her through the ordeals she'd inevitably have to face. After this, she walked out of the room and started walking towards her fourth-period classroom feeling...okay. Her stomach wasn't killing her anymore; it was, for a lack of a better term, tolerable.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Sitting at her seat, Rinoa couldn't help but survey the surroundings around her, eying the new clothes people were wearing, the new haircuts some were sporting and just new stuff in general; the holidays always seemed to change people. Most of them on a superfluous manner like getting a new pair of jeans or a sweater and some of them on a more psychological level, like they'd gained an elusive memory of an event which passed, similar to a secret, but a secret they were ready to divulge the very instant the right person came along.

And from where Rinoa was observing the scene, she couldn't be anymore right; people were talking with each other left, right and center like there was no tomorrow and just about everyone was clad in obviously-new articles of clothing. Another person entered the room and she was no exception, although Rinoa recognized the forest-green hooded sweatshirt and dark denim jeans straightaway; she'd been the one who'd picked it out when they went shopping on the 29th. Ivy sat in her seat directly in front of her and turned around. Seeing as she had a big smile on, Rinoa couldn't help but indulge in a bit of question-asking.

"Happy that your wardrobe pilfering days are over?" she joshed with a very light smirk of her own.

"Yes. My sister won't stop pestering me to tell you how glad she is that you took me shopping though. I almost want to have you sign a piece of paper confirming that I told you so that she'll get off my case." When Rinoa produced a pen as a joke, Ivy bat it away, giggling slightly. "Actually, hearing her go on and on about being so thankful should be the least of my worries. Now I'm afraid that she's going to start stealing _my_ clothes when I'm not looking."

Rinoa blinked. "Does she like them that much?"

"Believe it or not, she does. _Hm..._" she went off in a fake contemplative tone. "-maybe the next time I go up a size, I should start stealing Paul's clothes. That way, I won't have to worry about her swiping them."

"I don't think Paul would be too happy with you if one day he woke up and all of his clothes suddenly...vanished."

She let out another small chuckle. "You're making it seem like I'd be taking everything at once. Oh well, I was only kidding anyway, his clothes would still be far too big for me."

And with that, Ivy turned around, facing her terminal again. Rinoa had the tiniest of lingering smiles on her face, one that could only be seen if somebody looked real closely. She was glad that such a simple gesture had made her happy, if only for a fleeting moment. Not to mention being told that she'd picked out clothes that there considered nice enough to steal was kind of an odd sort of indirect compliment, emphasis on the word _**odd**_.

Yet another person walked through the door and she was not following the unspoken after-holiday dress code, she was wearing quite the opposite actually. Then again, instructors weren't allowed to wear much, if anything outside the standard uniform. After Instructor Trepe strode into the room, the bell sounded with uncanny timing. Even more astounding was the fact that the din had quieted down to a nearly nonexistent level split-seconds later. Hm. Maybe miracles did exist in this world.

"Now class," she started to address to the group of students, "It has come to my attention that many of you didn't know that today was the hand-in date for the last group assignment. So, in light of the circumstances, I have decided to push back the date to Wednesday and give you all today to work on it. However, if the time isn't being used properly, I'll be collecting the papers first thing tomorrow. No ifs, ands, or buts."

If her mouth would have been open at that given moment, Rinoa would have been willing to wager that her jaw would have dropped several feet. She almost wanted to cry foul; unbeknownst to the blonde instructor, they had busted their tails off to finish it in time. She looked back, hoping to exchange a mutual '_this is unfair' _look with Squall. It never happened; he wasn't even looking up at that moment. He had his upper body slumped on top of the terminal, head lying between his folded arms in a very un-Squall-like manner, almost hypocritically in a way. If memory served, wasn't he the one who told her that it didn't matter what you felt like, you went to school to learn; or something to that effect?

Rinoa turned back around and shot her hand up; it didn't go unnoticed by the teacher amid all the hubbub of students moving around to meet up with their group partners.

"Yes?"

"...What if we already have our group assignment done?"

Instructor Trepe readjusted the glasses so they weren't threatening to fall off on the tip of her nose anymore. "Well...as long as you and your partners are quiet and don't disrupt the others, you can do something on your own. I would like to have the assignment paper first though."

"Oh, okay." Rinoa looked back again, and Squall must not have heard a single word because he was still slumped over...and not handing the teacher their paper. In light of this revelation, she got out of her chair and circled the terminal desks behind her. When the loudness of her purposely-clunky footsteps didn't rouse him, Rinoa gave a sort of '_what do I do?_' look to Seifer. All he did was shrug in response.

"Don't look at me Rin. I'm not an expert sleep disturber, shit disturber maybe." he reasoned. "All I know is that trying to wake up Leonhart isn't high on my '_ways to piss him off'_ list."

"Yeah but...we kind of need the paper." Rinoa counter-reasoned. "Would it be better to just get it from his backpack then?"

Seifer snorted. "Yeah, sure, by all means, go ahead. ...If you _want _death, that is."

She sighed heavily. "...So why did I _not_ want to wake him up again?" she asked, exasperated.

"I never said anything about not waking him up, I just said it wasn't high on my list. Personally, I prefer it when he's fully-awake so that he appreciates the effort I put into bothering him."

Rinoa rolled her eyes light-heartedly. "...You're such a meany Seifer."

"I know, but why be any different?" he replied cockily with a haughty smirk – before something drew his eyes away from her. "Well, well, look who just woke up. Have a nice nap Leonhart?"

She watched in amazement at how he went from groggily lifting his head up from the desk the one moment and glaring daggers at him the next, not even a split-second later. And even though he didn't technically say anything, Rinoa could feel the heated ellipses and dot-dot-dots in his silent expression fly through the air like bullets.

'_...Oh Hyne, I must be going delirious.'_

Standing on his right, Squall turned his head to face her. ".._.What did the instructor say?_" he asked sleepily, straining to keep his tone audible; his voice was even raspier than before. It also became painfully easy to see why he wasn't following his own earlier principles. His face was regaining the undertones of green and he looked like he was utterly zapped for energy in general.

"She told the class that the assignment was pushed back because hardly anyone knew it was due today. So I asked what we were to do since we finished it already and she told us that if handed it in, we could do whatever as long as we were quiet."

Squall gave her a simple nod in comprehension and mindlessly fished through the bag beside him with his right hand. It wasn't long before he found a stapled bundle of papers and give it to her. Rinoa's eyebrows arched.

"Squall..." She put the paper in front of his face. "-You gave me a stack of random creative writing exercises, not the paper."

"_-What?_" His eyes jolted wide open and he grabbed the stapled mass from her, quickly skimming through the pages. When he proceeded to look through his bag once more at less leisurely pace, Rinoa got worried. He finally pulled out the correct pages at the end though.

Flipping through the pages he'd given her the second-time around, a wave of relief washed over her. "...Phew, you really had me scared for a moment there Squall."

"I'll say," Seifer chimed in sarcastically, "-I've never seen such a sight in my life. Mr. I-Live-For-School making a stupid mistake like that? Is the world coming to an end too?"

Squall pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "_...Cut the dramatics Seifer. I'm not in the mood._"

Despite this, Seifer's sardonic humour persisted. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you need to have _more_ than one mood in order to not be in one?"

If the blond's objective was to get a rise from him, it was backfiring horribly. Instead of saying anything in response, Squall got out of his seat, took his knapsack and left to sit in Rinoa's for some mysterious reason or another. There, he resumed what he'd been doing before and Rinoa was left with a bunch of questions floating in her head. Why did he take her seat?

Theoretically, it was no better than his own; the only difference was that Seifer was now behind him instead of on his left. Both her and Seifer exchanged looks amid the now-bustling-with-activity classroom. He motioned with his finger for her to come closer and when she did, she quickly realized that it was so he could whisper something to her.

"_What's_ _the deal with him? He's usually good for a good riling or two._" he asked softly, quietly pointing a thumb in the direction of their now-sleeping assignment partner.

"_He's really sick. We both nearly spent the whole day in the infirmary. We were only discharged because Dr. Kadowaki needed more available beds._"

Seifer furrowed his eyebrows. "_You were sick? Was that why I didn't see your face anywhere today?_"

"_Yeah...I had a really bad stomach ache._"

"_Sorry to hear that Rin._" he said almost apologetically, pausing a moment later only to switch subjects in an even lower voice. "_How did you guys finish that assignment without me there? You do realize that Trepe won't hesitate to bury me if she suspects I didn't do anything._"

"_Me and Squall spent a couple of hours in a library to finish it. And don't worry about anyone burying you; we took some precautions to make sure that wouldn't happen. ..Well, it was more Squall than me. I wrote your part and Squall-" _Rinoa stopped for a split-second to find a feasible alternative other than the original '_dumb it down_' he had said,_ "-looked it over._"

"_Lemme see that._" Rinoa handed him the paper and he looked in sheer amazement as he started reading '_his_' part. "_Hell, I can't believe this __**wasn't**__ me who wrote that. Hyne, I don't know whether I should be happy or worried about the obvious effort put into this. The fact that he purposely misspelled Quezacotl the way I always do is starting to scare me._"

"_Actually..._" Rinoa started sheepishly, "-_I'm pretty sure I was the one who misspelled Quezacotl by accident. Maybe be didn't catch it when he was looking it over._"

"_Him not catching it? No way in hell. Coming from many years of experience, I know that he's a spelling and punctuation whore. Imitating the way I write, maybe, but misspelling something on purpose or not catching it? Never._"

Even Rinoa had to suppress a chuckle from this. "..._I can't believe you just called him a 'spelling and punctuation whore'._" she commented in mild disbelief.

Seifer smirked. "_Well he sure doesn't qualify as the regular kind._"

'_You'd be surprised at the people who think he does Seifer._' her mind quipped. '_Then again, I am too._'

"_That he doesn't._" After he returned the pages back to her, she started talking at a normal level again. "I'll go give this in now."

He nodded. "Thanks Rin."

"It's no problem."

After she walked around Squall's terminal, Rinoa stopped for a second once she was parallel to her own terminal row. With his face resting on top of his crossed arms, eyes closed and his head facing her, it was plain to see that Squall looked even worse than ever.

She bit her lip as she walked towards the front of the class. Once she was at the big spacious bureau up front, Rinoa caught the instructor's attention easily by her presence. She handed her the paper and in turn, the blonde perused it and gave her a quick nod, indicating that she was good to go back to her seat. However, Rinoa did not leave. Not because her seat was already occupied by someone, but because of that someone occupying her seat.

"Um...I think Squall's not feeling too good and I'm kind of worried." she stated hesitantly. "His face looks kind of green and he stole my seat to try and rest. We were both in the infirmary earlier so I think there might be a possibility of whatever he had is coming back."

She put the paper aside and gave her a sort of conflicted look. "I can't exactly leave the class alone to bring him there Rinoa."

"Well... what if I brought him? I promise to come back after."

The instructor grimaced. "Even then, he has to be the one who to tell me. I can't just admit him to the infirmary under the pretext of speculation. I know that Dr. Kadowaki has enough on her plate as it is."

"I see...So if he tells you that he's not feeling good, I could or even someone else could bring him then?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

Rinoa started walking back. Convincing Squall to go back to the infirmary was going to be easier said than done, given what he said earlier and his particular opinion of her. Then again, if this agreement was going to work in the long run, they'd have to establish trust somewhere down the line.

-And now was a good a time as ever to lay down that foundation.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments –** A week's not bad for updating, huh? Well anyway, I hope this wasn't too boring content-wise. I just had to get some things out of the way and start on others.

Then again, you guys could always look on the bright side, you guys got a little Seifer time out of the deal and I still updated within a reasonable interval.

So it's all good, right?

_...Right?_

_-Emerald-Latias _


	15. Chapter XIV – Sleep Talking

**Author's Notes –** So far, so good. I've been delivering on my promises rather consistently as of late. Still have to shatter that record though. Oh well..That'll come in time. No, lemme rephrase that, that'll come _**when I have**_ time. Meh. I'll do what I can in the meantime.

Hey...I just realized something. This fic's got the highest review count out of everything I've ever done. Woohoo! I might actually break a hundred later on. Wouldn't that be sweet? I think so.

_Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint._

...Okay, I'll stop that.

****

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XIV – Sleep Talking**

_-_

_Stumbling I fall away – it's hard to make a change,  
Easy to be who you are when no one knows your name,  
Walking past the lonely walls with eyes as cold as stone,  
Climb inside the emptiness – it's safe when you're alone._

_**-Lifehouse, Everyone is Someone.**_

**_-_**

Standing before her was the subject, no, scratch that, slumped before her was the subject, body immobilized by sleep, skin pale, sickly and green... There was no doubt in her mind that he was sick, the dilemma lied within the reality that he had to realize that fact. Rinoa sat herself in Ryan's unoccupied seat, on her assigned seat's immediate right. She started drumming her fingertips nervously on the desk as the questions filled her mind. How should she wake him up? What would be the best approach to convince him? Should she even tackle this problem to begin with? Paralysed with doubt and indecisiveness, she got up and moved to Squall's original seat. Maybe this wasn't her problem to deal with.

...Still, she knew perfectly well about how stubborn he was when it came to infirmary visits and how it always took someone else to get him there. It wasn't so much a question about caring and personal involvement; it was one of moral responsibility more than anything else really. Like for example, what if something serious happened to him because he waited too long to get checked out or because no one _pushed_ him enough to get it checked out?

Paraphrasing Squall from a few weeks ago, she didn't want that kind of guilt weighing on her mind. But even then, how was she supposed to go about this? Rinoa sighed. This was _way too _complicated.

A curious voice from her left caught her off-guard. "-Something wrong?"

She turned her head and gave Seifer a half-shrug and another wistful sigh. "I have a moral dilemma on my hands."

The blond furrowed his eyebrows. "It's not about the project, is it?"

"No, it's nothing like that." She paused for a second to collect her thoughts. "I, um.." She paused again. Maybe if she were to phrase this as a vague hypothetical question, Seifer would be able to give her an idea of what to do. _Yeah_, she thought,_ maybe that'd work_. "Um...Seifer, could I ask you a hypothetical question?"

"Shoot."

"If there were someone who needed help and you knew that they'd only get it if someone else convinced them, would it be okay if you were the one to push them to get it, even though it's technically none of your business?"

Seifer leisurely reclined in his chair and stretched his long arms. "I'd say that you're worrying too much about Leonhart." he deadpanned.

Rinoa did a double-take before grimacing sheepishly. "...Was I _that_ see-through?"

"Yeah, you kind of were." He stopped stretching his arms and went back to sitting in his chair properly. "But in all seriousness, if he was sick enough to need medical attention he wouldn't be drooling on your desk right now."

Reflexively, she looked at her desk to check if Squall was actually drooling and as it turned out, Seifer only said that as a figure of speech. Looking back to face the blond, Rinoa knew that her face must have been burning a bright pink right now; it was times like these where she cursed her inherent naivety.

"...I know, but I still can't help but to be sort of worried. It's not everyday where you see someone look so...green." she admitted.

Even in light of her admission, Seifer would still have none of it. "Rin, I'll say it once and I'll say it again, your sympathies would be better spent on someone else. You won't get anywhere by trying to convince him to go. Trust me; if you're not an authority figure who can order him around, that guy won't budge once he's made up his mind. The only way you'd be able to convince him is if he was delirious enough to think you're Trepe."

Rinoa exhaled heavily and got out of her seat. "...I guess I'll have to put on a blonde wig and glasses then."

"Fine...suit yourself." Right at that moment, he got out of his own seat too. "Just don't say I didn't warn you."

He left the classroom altogether, leaving Rinoa free to attempt the most-likely impossible task of knocking some common sense into their other assignment partner. Oddly enough, Instructor Trepe didn't go after the blond.

...Perhaps some questions in this world were best left ignored.

Walking back down to her seat's row, Rinoa sat in Ryan's empty seat once more and took in a deep breath. Still firmly rooted in the seat, she leaned over and extended her hand to reach his slumped figure. In one swift moment, she gently started shaking his shoulder. She flinched at initial contact; the said body part was far warmer than what she'd ever expected.

In spite of the brevity of her jostling, Rinoa noticed that he was starting to stir; a sure sign that he was going to wake up any second now.

"_**No...you're lying...she can't..be...**_

Rinoa blinked in confusion. Was that him mumbling in his sleep?

"-Squall?" she called out, shaking his back furthermore, but to no avail. If it was possible, Rinoa could have sworn he was even warmer than before.

Almost out of nowhere, he finally lifted his head up, face all blotchy from the fabric imprints his sweater sleeves left after lying down on them for so long. She was almost concerned by how confused and out of it he appeared. She would have never even thought of picturing him like this in a lifetime.

"...Are you okay?" she mumbled.

He wiped away most of his confused look with a simple rub of his hand across closed lids and face. "_...I've been better._"

"Well, I kinda hope so. You look green."

He moved his hand away from his face and opened his eyes. His confused look may have disappeared, but he would still need to chug an entire pot of strong coffee in one sitting to look awake. "_...Unless if Seifer put fresh green paint on my sleeves without me noticing, I think your imagination's a little too active for your own good_."

Rinoa sighed. '..._And the battle comes at last._'

From one of her blue sweater's pockets, she dug out a small compact mirror, opened it and put it in front of him.

"Now if you can't see what I meant by looking at your own reflection, by all means, call my imagination into question."

He didn't even bother to take a single glance into the tiny mirror before pushing it away from where Rinoa held it close to his nose.

"_I know what you're driving at so don't bother._" he said in a thoroughly aggravated tone. "_Going there wouldn't achieve anything anyway. You of all people should remember what she'd told us before we were discharged._"

"Yeah but you have to take in consideration that she may have said that because she thought that there was no point in keeping us if we were just going to get better without needing more attention or medicine."

"_Whatever, I still don't see the point when there's only one period to go, it's not like I can't endure this._"

Regardless of his words, Rinoa wasn't going to give up the fight just yet, not when she saw the kind of opening like the one he unwittingly gave her.

"So does that mean you're admitting that you're sick then?"

He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "_-What are you talking about?_"

"You just said, '_it's not like I can't endure this_', meaning that there **is** something that's making you not feel well." she pointed out smartly. Maybe attacking with logic was the best way to deal with him after all.

"..._..Fine, I'm not._" he reluctantly conceded, gritting it through his teeth. "_-it's nothing though. Go worry about something else and leave me alone._"

Unfortunately for him, leaving him alone was not in the cards as far as Rinoa was concerned, especially since his actions belied his words when she noticed that his arms were inconspicuously pressed against his stomach again – a telltale sign of his bodily woes. After a lightning-quick glance around the room to make sure that everyone was still preoccupied with their own groups and projects, Rinoa shifted to the edge of her seat and leaned over ever so slightly. She spoke softly but firmly to his face.

"_I'm not leaving you alone because I know that it's bothering you more than you're willing to admit,_" she whispered, "..._And quite frankly, if this agreement's going to work in the long-run, we've got to learn how to get along and to trust one another. I wouldn't be making a point of convincing you to go to the infirmary if I didn't think it wasn't something big. You've got to trust me on this._"

He looked at her for a good second or two before turning away and resuming his previous slumped position. Rinoa was disheartened by this simple action of him resting on the desk. Had her speech gone through one ear and out the other?

"..._If it gets any worse, I'll go then._"

For the second time today, Rinoa could have easily bet that if she had her mouth open at that moment, it would have dropped to the floor. Could this be considered as success in achieving the impossible, or just a minor victory? Either way, she thanked Hyne for the fact that he had his face buried in his sleeves; otherwise, he would have seen her incredibly flustered and red face.

Mustering all of the composure she had, Rinoa mumbled a simple, '_thanks for understanding_' to him. He gave her a muffled and unintelligible grumble in return – not that she was expecting much, if anything from him. Her conscience felt a little lighter.

Now that that was as settled as it was going to get, the next thing on Rinoa's agenda was to figure out what to do for the remainder of the period. Doing homework was out of the question, seeing as she hadn't gone to a class all day in order to _get_ any homework, she couldn't talk to anyone she would have liked to since they were all busy with their projects, or in Seifer's case, gone, so that left her with a limited amount of means she could take to distract herself with.

Aimlessly drumming her fingers on the desk, she looked at the blank screen before her. '_Maybe I could waste time online._'

After her digits fluttered across the keyboard, pressing the random keys which composed of her Garden access number, Rinoa was surprised when a pop-up on the screen told her that access to the network had been denied. Figuring that she may have had a slip-up somewhere, she re-entered the code more slowly and carefully this time. The pop-up reared its ugly pixels once more. Frustrated, she tried again. Third time wasn't the charm.

Annoyed by the stupid machine's inability to do the simplest of things she'd done effortlessly dozens and dozens of times before on the terminal right beside her-

When it hit her, her mind whipped up a sarcastic comment. '_Oh great, leave it up to the Garden to make the network computer-specific. Hm...Maybe I could do other word game I brought for lunch today._'

Rinoa got up from her seat to look for the backpack she knew she'd put somewhere near her desk while trying to avoid disrupting Squall's attempt at a nap. After looking high and low, her navy backpack was nowhere to be seen; she even looked by the seats in the last row for good measure and still came up with nothing. Temporarily defeated, she slumped herself in the seat beside Squall and sure enough, irony struck; she spotted her part of her missing knapsack right then and there. The only problem being that the part she saw, one of the bag's straps, was poking out from under the desk by Squall's feet and by the way it appeared to lodged under there, it didn't look like it could be pulled out without having to move his feet.

'_Well, it looks like I'll have to wake him up after all. I __**really**__ don't want to spend the entire period twiddling my thumbs, doing nothing._'

Reaching her hand over, Rinoa lightly shook his shoulder for the second time today. The lack of response was worrisome; she hadn't flinched like the last time. She tried again and nothing happened. She got up from her seat to be able to use more force in her jostling. When he still was as unresponsive as a human-sized ragdoll her heart skipped a beat, maybe two. Was he unconscious or was he just a heavy sleeper? Her heart raced and her stomach felt leaden; even the heaviest of sleepers would have woken up by the force of her shakes and jostles. Add the fact it didn't take long for him to wake up the last time made it evident that it wasn't likely that he was.

'_Hyne...Hyne...Hyne! This isn't good!_'

In a state of panic, Rinoa was about to yell at Instructor Trepe to help get Squall to the infirmary but found herself unable to form words with her mouth. She froze. She froze over the fact that he was mumbling incomprehensible things again.

"_**...I can't...believe this...I can't.**_

"Squall..." She tried jostling his shoulder again. Maybe the muttering held a sign that he wasn't unconscious. This time, the shaking did a better job of getting a reaction from him and slowly but surely, he came to, turning his head to the right ever so slightly.

"—_What?_" he grumbled.

Rinoa put her hand to her side again. "Well I was going to ask you to move your feet so I could get my backpack but I think it would be better if I asked you to go to the infirmary now."

"_...I thought we already discussed this._" he countered tiredly.

"Yeah, well that was before you wouldn't wake up when I was shaking your shoulder and started mumbling things. I don't care if you said that you'd go if it got worse because for all I know, you'll either pass out or puke your guts out before you'll admit you're sick enough to go."

"._..I was mumbling things?_" he said in a perplexed tone, giving Rinoa the impression that it was the only thing he paid attention to during her entire tirade.

"Yes, you were."

He finally brought up his head, getting the kinks out of his neck at the same time. "_...Like what?_"

"Tell you what Squall," she started wryly, "I'll tell you if you go to the infirmary."

He glared at her. "._..I take back any comments about you being an airhead. Airheads aren't smart enough to be extortionists._"

"-I think the preferred term here is opportunist." she corrected. "Besides, it's for your own good."

"..._Whatever._" He slowly got up from his seat and started walking towards the instructor's desk. Rinoa followed him wordlessly.

'_Well, at least it's nice to know that one less person thinks of me like that. Now all I have to do is make the rest of them get the right idea._'

'_I can't believe that his need to know what he said was enough to make him go to the infirmary though. I'm starting to wonder if what he said meant anything. Hm. Maybe it has to do with the person he visited in the hospital. Either way, I'm glad that I finally convinced him to go._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After Squall briefly mumbled something in his currently-strained voice to the instructor, they both had the permission to go to the infirmary. Walking along the corridors, Rinoa decided to make good on her deal to tell him what he'd said straightaway, to show that this wasn't a ploy to get him to go. Not being considered an airhead was a good thing, being considered a bitch instead was another thing altogether.

"Nobody's around, did you want me to tell you what you said now?" she asked.

He have her a feeble '_yes_' in return.

"Okay. The first time you said something like, '_You're lying. She can't be._' and the second time you did it, you said, _'I can't believe this_'. Does...that mean anything to you?"

All she heard was the sound of their footsteps, nothing more.

When he didn't answer, she quickly apologized and added, "-Nevermind, I shouldn't be asking that. It's none of my business."

Just before they were at the foot of the elevator, Rinoa couldn't hear the echo of his footsteps anymore. She looked behind her, thinking that he might have turned in the other direction because what she told him wasn't good enough to keep his side of the deal. She was wrong about him leaving, he had only stopped.

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. "You need to sit down?"

He didn't answer her question and proceeded to walk up to the elevator door. At this point it was apparent that he was struggling to stay upright, keeping a hand on the outer elevator wall in order to press the down button. It was almost like an outside force was pushing him to do these things, like there was a heated fight between his mind and body – a fight that ended in the first round.

"Hyne, no!" she yelled. He had collapsed seconds before the elevator door had opened and Seifer had come out from its insides.

"What's with the screaming Rin-_ Oh_." The blond suddenly got the gist of the situation in the very split-second he saw Squall slumped and unconscious near the elevator wall. "And to think I was only coming back to get my backpack. I'm guessing that you got so fed up from his constant talking that you decided to sock him one just to shut him up."

"Now's not the time to make jokes Seifer, we have to get him to the infirmary now!" she hissed.

Seifer rolled his eyes. "Yes, because we all know Seifer loves lugging pansy boy Squall go to the infirmary." he replied sardonically. In spite of this, the blond still bent over to help Rinoa pick him up. "And Rinoa, just so we're clear, the only reason I'm helping you out is because I know you can hardly pick up an empty cardboard box, let alone drag a scrawny excuse of a guy. You tell anyone about this and you're dead."

"Don't worry Seifer, I won't tell. And I-" They finally lifted Squall off the floor. "-appreciate the help very much."

"Damn straight you do. But I have to admit that I'm surprised you got him to go in the first place, I'm impressed."

"What can I say? I can be _very_ persuasive."

With Squall between them, an arm over each of their shoulders, they hauled him into the elevator.

"So I take it you promised to flash him?" he quipped.

"Seifer!" Rinoa yelped indignantly.

The elevator door closed.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **I would have had this out sooner by my computer crashed and it took forever for the computer to restart. Oh well. Hope you guys liked it. Oh and if you guys have the chance, I started a new collab fic with EilayAdnayVolieay called_ Here is Gone, _so if you guys could check it out and give us some feedback on it, it would be very appreciated.

_-Emerald-Latias _


	16. Chapter XV – Rain or Shine

**Author's Notes – **Thank you for all of the positive things you guys said in your reviews. As always, I'm glad to hear that you like the writing. It means a lot to me. And hey, I'm even close to 100 reviews for a fic, which is a definite first for me. I'm reaching new heights and it's all thanks to you guys. You'll never know how much I appreciate the time you guys took to tell me how you feel about each new addition I put out. Being in the dark about how you're doing is no fun, lemme tell you. So before I start to babble (as if I haven't already), here's Chapter 15.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XV – Rain or Shine**

_-_

_Confusion never stops,  
Closing walls and ticking clocks,  
Gonna come back and take you home,  
I could not stop what you now know,  
Singing – come out upon my seas,  
Curse missed opportunities,  
Am I a part of the cure,  
Or am I part of the disease?_

_**-Coldplay, Clocks.**_

-

How they'd managed to carry him to the infirmary so quickly was anyone's guess. But in the end, she was thankful for the simple fact that it happened that way, _despite_ Seifer's horrible, horrible joke early-on about her giving Squall incentive to go by promising to flash him. There were too many things wrong with that picture in Rinoa's opinion. But then again, that was probably the point of Seifer making the joke, to get the biggest reaction from the fact that neither her or Squall were likely to do such a thing.

Nonetheless, Rinoa was still grateful for his help.

Sitting on a stool by the room's desk, she waited patiently for Dr. Kadowaki to finish whatever medical procedure she was currently performing on Squall behind the fully-veiled fabric partition and tell her if he was going to be okay. Her conscious had to know this to feel better after not being able to get him here soon enough to avoid this whole mess. She didn't have the mental strength to walk away the instant he was safely placed on a bed like Seifer did. He wasn't her favourite person in the world, but dammit, she couldn't find in herself not to care. It was a part of her nature, something that wouldn't ever go away no matter how hard life could be or what it threw at her.

The partition curtain flew open with a strong hand pushing it to the side and seconds later, Dr. Kadowaki walked past it and strode decidedly towards her bureau, grabbing the desk phone and speedily punched a few numbers._ Hm_, Rinoa mused, _it must have been fixed or at least swapped sometime today_. Either way, she sat still on her stool.

"Quistis? I'm going to keep both students in the infirmary." She paused, presumably to listen to Instructor Trepe talk. "Yes, yes... He'll be fine. She'll probably be here awhile." Another pause. "...Right. Try to get a hold of her and have her come by. Thank you."

After she set the phone down, Dr. Kadowaki looked at Rinoa with a sort of exasperated look. The teenager could tell that it wasn't so much directed at her but rather a by-product from the situation as a whole. After undoubtedly guessing the question weighing on her mind from her anxious expression, the doctor wasted no time in cutting to the chase.

"I've ran some preliminary tests and it looks like he'll be fine with a bit of treatment." Rinoa sighed in relief, knowing that her worst fears wouldn't be realized. "However, I have to ask you a favour."

She blinked. "Um..sure. What is it?"

"Right after you two must have left the classroom, Instructor Trepe called the infirmary to let me know of your arrival in advance and said that you had talked to her about Squall's welfare before he had come up to her himself. Well, in any case, would you be able to list some symptoms he appeared to have earlier? Knowing that boy, I doubt I'd willingly get any viable answers, unconscious or not."

Rinoa nodded. "Sure. Well...I think he must have been exhausted since all he wanted to do was sleep in class, his face looked very pale and kind of green, his voice was really strained and raspy when he talked, he felt really warm when I shook his shoulder to wake him up and I'm pretty sure his stomach was aching badly because when I was trying to convince him to go, I noticed that his one arm would press against it in the same way I do whenever my stomach's killing me."

"So you're saying that the symptoms he appeared to have had included fatigue, increased pallor, hoarse voice, high body temperature and signs of a mild to severe stomach ache?"

"Yes. Pretty much."

"Hm." The doctor turned to face the desk again, grabbed a manila folder and pen and proceeded to open it in order to jot a few things down on the first page. Later, she set it down. "Well that confirms my suspicions." she announced to no one in particular. Then, she turned her body and attentions towards Rinoa again. "Rinoa, I must thank you for your co-operation and overall help in this situation and I'm sure that Mrs. Loire will be thanking you even more when she gets here shortly."

"...Mrs. Loire?" Rinoa repeated confusedly. "Who's she?"

"Oh goodness, it must have slipped my mind. Mrs. Loire is Squall's mother."

"Ohh, I get it. Well..sorta." she confessed.

"Don't worry, I can relate to the initial confusion." Dr. Kadowaki tossed her a knowing smirk. "The first time he'd been admitted to the infirmary, I made the mistake of addressing him as Squall Loire after reading his medical file – never made the mistake since. As for why he opts for what I know is his mother's maiden name, I haven't a clue."

"Thanks..." she replied sheepishly. "I was kinda confused for a moment there."

'_Well...I still am, but I don't think that's any of my business. Hm. I can't help but wonder if anyone else knows about this too. Then again, I suppose these kinds of interesting, but minor details get lost along the way when everyone focuses on one aspect of you._'

'_Either way, I'm just glad he's going to be okay. I should be the first one to know about the importance of timing._'

"So," Dr. Kadowaki started in an overly stern and booming voice to the bed nearest to the desk, effectively knocking Rinoa out of her small thought-fest. "-I see you've finally decided to wake up Mr. Leonhart."

Sitting himself upright on the mattress, he groggily blinked back at the two women in front of him, looking like he was hazily trying to grasp the situation in front of him. For the umpteenth time today, Rinoa thought it was downright pitiful seeing the often sharp-tongued and glare-prone teenager look so vulnerable.

Then again, she realized for the first time ever, it was a part of the stereotype everyone associated with him – the assumption that he was always like that and never showed signs of being a normal human being with highs and lows. Rinoa secretly chastised herself. Sure, during all this time she thought she was different from the others, recognizing him as more than the sarcastic, workaholic glare-box everyone else passed him off as, and here she had unwittingly done the exact same thing they did. She withheld a sigh. It looked like she was going to have learn more than she initially thought.

When Rinoa zoned back into the real world and she noticed that his eyes appeared to have regained their piercing and sceptical nature, the older woman continued.

"While I understand not visiting the infirmary if the nature of the problem is not serious, I will **not** tolerate this kind of attitude concerning serious health risks from you anymore Mr. Leonhart. If not for Mr. Almasy and Miss Heartilly, the complications arising from such a delay would have been severe, if not fatal. Consider yourself lucky to have gotten here when you did."

Rinoa eyes widened, as did Squall's, maybe a little less so due to his overall tiredness. What he had could have been ..._fatal?_

"..._I almost died?_" he sputtered.

"No, but hopefully the scare will make my speech all the more memorable." she riposted smartly. "But make no mistake, the Estharian flu is still a very serious condition to have in any case."

Then, she unceremoniously went over to his bedside to give him something Rinoa couldn't quite discern from her position on the stool. What she could discern however, was that Dr. Kadowaki must have told him to lie down and rest some more after taking whatever it was she'd given him because that's exactly what he did. It wasn't long before the good doctor walked away from his bedside and closed the previously-opened section of the curtains, giving him privacy once more. It was also the perfect time for Rinoa ask what she was to do now, given that she was back at her desk.

"So Dr. Kadowaki, now that this is all more-or-less cleared up, am I free to leave to go back to my fourth period or do you still need me here for something else?"

"Actually, I do." She took a thoughtful pause to readjust her glasses. "If you wouldn't mind, if you could stay for when Mrs. Loire comes, I'd appreciate it very much. She might have some questions that you may be able to answer better than I can. Not to mention I'm sure she'd like the opportunity to properly thank you for your help in the matter.

Rinoa's face went a tad flush. "Um, sure, I'll stay to answer some questions, but ah...I don't need any thanks, it was nothing. I just ...did what I thought was the right thing to do."

The doctor smiled. "Let her be the judge of that."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Sitting in complete silence was starting to increasingly get on Rinoa's nerves. From the time where she had the brief conversation with Dr. Kadowaki to discuss whether she should stay or go to the present, twenty minutes had already elapsed and the only thing which happened during the interim to break up the monotony of white-wall-watching was when the older woman checked up on Squall. Even then, it wasn't exactly the height of excitement – he appeared to be sound asleep from what she could see.

Rinoa closed her eyes for a moment to massage away the built-up stress in them with her fingertips. Opening them again, she got the desperately-needed surprise of the hour; seeing another figure near the infirmary door. As the woman walked through, there was only one possibility running through the teenager's mind as to who she could have been. The blue-grey eyes, the long chestnut-coloured hair, the facial features...the resemblance was simply uncanny. This woman had to be Squall's mother.

Clad in a simple, unzipped navy winter coat, light yellow sweater and jeans, she took a couple of steps towards them before the desk-dwelling doctor took notice of her arrival.

"I got a call from the Garden about my son not feeling very well. Is he going to be alright?" she asked a concerned but calm tone.

Dr. Kadowaki got up from her chair behind her desk, Rinoa on the other hand, stayed put on her stool, silently questioning her being there. She couldn't help but feel like she was intruding on a very private moment.

"He had to be given a strong antibiotic earlier but he'll be fine, Mrs. Loire. Your son has a severe case of the Estharian flu, but it's nothing that a good week of bed rest and some additional antibiotics can't cure." Then she intentionally looked over at Rinoa. "However, with that being said, we were fortunate to catch it before it got any worse. I daresay he wouldn't be sound asleep like he is right now if it would have been otherwise."

"You don't know how relieved I am to hear that." the other woman admitted, her hand placed over her heart. "With his older sister Ellone having a close call in a car accident last month, I couldn't help but imagine the worst after that call. I noticed that he didn't look too well since we came home from visiting her in the hospital in Esthar but my mind must have still preoccupied with what happened there to think of keeping him home."

'_So it was his sister in the hospital in Esthar... Interesting._'

Mrs. Loire took a small cleansing breath put her hand back down to her side. "But in any case, I'm glad to be proven wrong." Then she shifted her attention towards Rinoa. "So I take it you're the one who convinced Squall to come here?"

'_Hyne...I still can't get over the resemblance. It's almost like talking to a female Squall...who actually talks._'

"Yes, I did." Rinoa answered demurely, still slightly fazed by the distinct pair cerulean eyes staring back at her.

"Thank you." she said with a tiny hint of a smile. "I know that it couldn't have been an easy task, knowing how stubborn he can be sometimes."

"It was no problem...really. I've dealt with worse."

"Still, I appreciate it very much. As his mother, I sometimes I wonder where his head's at sometimes." Her attention went back to Dr. Kadowaki again. "So from what was said earlier, Squall will need some antibiotics and roughly a week's rest to get better?"

"Yes." the doctor affirmed. "I have the specific kind of antibiotic he requires here in the infirmary, however, the amount of bed rest he will need may vary. At the very minimum, two days, at the maximum, eight. It all depends on how long he's been neglecting his symptoms for. My personal guess would be five days at the minimum, given what transpired today."

"I'll make sure that he gets that then, I owe him that much. But, just out of curiosity, how could it be possible that Squall was the only one of us two who caught the Estharian flu? For its namesake I would assume that he got it in Esthar, but other than that, I'm stumped. I know for a fact that I'm far more prone to getting sick than he is, so this doesn't quite make sense."

"The Estharian flu is a fairly easy illness to contract if you're not native to Esthar and go to the wrong place or touch the wrong surface. During your visit, has he been to many places where you haven't?"

"The only time Squall was on his own during the trip was when he made one last visit to Ellone the evening before we left while I was packing our bags. Even then, we were both in her room and on that floor many times before."

"Well, unless if he visited one of the slightly less cleanly wards such as pediatrics or maternity, I wouldn't know what to say other than he was severely unlucky."

For the first time since she got here, Mrs. Loire looked at ease. "Unless if one of my husband's nieces had a baby that I didn't know about at the time, I think we'll simply have to chalk this up to being unlucky. So I suppose this only leaves us with the issue of how he's going to keep up in school then. I'm almost positive that he might attempt sneaking into the Garden if I don't see to it being resolved."

"Well, a week's worth of lessons might be a bit much for his instructors to give you on short notice like this, but if you knew of another student who would be willing to bring them to your house, I think that would resolve the problem nicely."

It was at this point where Rinoa finally realized why she'd been asked to stay. Dr. Kadowaki hadn't been anticipating a question from Squall's mother like how Squall got here or what his symptoms were, she'd been anticipating a question about him keeping up in school and his homework. Damn was that woman ever crafty. And now, all eyes were on her.

'_...I guess I'll have to do this if I want him to be well enough to be able to keep his side of the bargain. Besides, it's not likely that anyone has most of his classes and will want to volunteer themselves. Maybe I could write some additional notes for the Lit stuff he'll get so I can kill two Chocobos with one stone.' _

Rinoa withheld what felt like the thousandth sigh today.

'_Ouu...I wish I wasn't duped like this though, it's like being under the illusion of having two options but fully-well knowing that you only have one. ...Dr. Kadowaki's lucky that I'm nice enough to play the sucker in her game._'

"-I could do it." the teenager piped up, selflessly volunteering herself as expected. "I'm in most of his classes and I might not live far from your house Mrs. Loire."

"Thank you for the offer, but I think I'd feel better if I had a rough idea of where you lived before saying yes or no. It wouldn't be right having this agreement if you lived a fair distance away."

"I live in the middle of First Avenue, on the outskirts of town. It's by the hotel and Balamb harbour."

"That's fairly close. We're on one of the side streets off of First Avenue, have you heard of Page Street? We live in the beige corner house."

"Yes, I have. So I guess this means I'll be dropping off your son's homework for the next week, huh?"

"Only if you want to. I wouldn't want to burden you with this when I don't even know your name."

Rinoa shook her head. "It's no problem, not at all. I'll be there rain or shine._ –Err...I mean,_ snow or shine." There was an awkward pause. "-Uh, my name's Rinoa, by the way."

"-And mine's Raine. Mrs. Loire is my mother-in-law's name."

The teenager couldn't help but smirk. "...I'll try to remember that."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **God... I never thought writing such a small chapter was going to be so hard. I suppose that difficulty has to do with the fact that Raine didn't have much dialogue in the game and she never technically co-existed in Squall and Rinoa timeline. And because of that, it's kind of hard writing dialogue for her, especially when most of it was directed at chastising Laguna and a younger Ellone. Aah...I probably screwed it up.

...But, trying really hard counts for something, _right?_

_-Emerald-Latias_


	17. Chapter XVI – Shades of Grey

**Author's Notes – **Woohoo! I'm finally over a hundred, yay! And just to celebrate that achievement with you guys, here's another relatively-speedy update, courtesy of yours truly. Cheers!

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XVI – Shades of Grey**

_-_

_You worry all the things they could do to you,  
And you worry about the things they could say,  
Maybe you're seeing things the wrong way,  
When the kids on the street say – what's your problem, girl?  
And the weight of their smile gets too much for you to bear,  
When they all make you feel like you're a problem girl,  
Remember, you're no problem at all._

_**-Rob Thomas, Problem Girl.**_

-

If her watch didn't lie, there was roughly twenty minutes left before the last bell would toll and the first official day back to school would be officially over. ...Well, technically it hadn't really started for Rinoa, given that she spent most of it outside the classroom, but the idea was still there. In either case, she was glad to see all of the drama over and done with as she leisurely sat in **her** seat, doing the word game she wanted to do earlier but couldn't.

"Hey Rin, got a minute?"

Rinoa looked up. ...So much for her wacky, side-splitting word game.

Setting the piece of paper down, she gave Nat her full, undivided attention straightaway. If she hadn't or if she showed the slightest trace of apprehension, the sceptical blond probably would have picked up on it and made a big deal out of it, perhaps blowing the whole thing up even more than she was inevitably going to do anyways, given that she'd been gone for practically an hour from the class and was last seen with Squall. The only thing Rinoa hoped for right now was for the strength to endure the increasingly-tiring kind of bitter humour Nat was going to pull any second now.

"Would you be able to help me, Lucy and Eden on the assignment? The last question's not making sense."

Rinoa did a double-take. This request was definitely _**not**_ what she was expecting to come out of her mouth. "Ah...sure Nat."

Getting up from her seat, she followed Nat to the other side of the classroom where the others were. Adrienne was close by, but she was working with her group partners, which she assumed consisted of her brother and Ivy, to take notice of her being there. Maybe it was better this way; it wasn't quite the time or place to be discussing something that would inevitably lead to telling her about _**him**_, especially with other people around.

Rinoa sat down in what she assumed was Nat's seat, lodged between Lucy and Eden. Nat hovered over her shoulder and pointed at the problem in question. "Now what are we supposed to be doing here? Are we supposed to only write about Quezacotl's powers when the user summons it or are we supposed to write about the power the junctions gives to its user?"

"You're supposed to write about the powers Quezacotl has when the user summons it." Rinoa pointed to a specific line. "This line here shows that that's what the question's looking for."

"Thanks Rin, you're a lifesaver." Eden said gratefully. "We asked around and nobody seemed to be at that question yet or they didn't know for sure. We wanted to ask you first since your group was done already, but you were gone with Squall for all of this time."

"Actually, we were kind of starting to panic since you gone so long." Lucy added.

Whether it was her intention or not, the brunette's comment made Rinoa start to feel bad. "...I'm really sorry; I couldn't help being there so long. Dr. Kadowaki wanted me to stick around to—" She caught herself in time. "-answer a few questions."

"Why? Mr. Anti-Social got too lazy to even talk to a doctor? Hyne, I knew that you couldn't keep your hands off of him that one day Rin, but even I think you should draw the line at being his mouthpiece." Nat quipped. There was a small eruption of laughter similar to the one day Nat had referred to mere seconds ago.

Rinoa felt like she'd been punched repeatedly in the gut. "-It wasn't like that Nat," she countered vehemently, "-he collapsed before we even got there. Dr. Kadowaki needed me there to answer some questions about certain things to make sure her diagnosis was accurate."

"..._Aaand?_" the sharp-tongued blonde drawled.

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows."-And what?"

"Well unless if you went on in litanies and graphic detail about his symptoms after you dragged him there, I doubt that's all what happened."

'_Crap, I'm in one of those damned if I do, damned if I don't scenarios again. My poker face sucks too much to be able to lie about bringing Squall his homework. Hyne, is it normal to want to repeatedly bang my head on the desk right now? I sure can't get away with faking laryngitis twice in one day._'

Rinoa sighed in defeat. "...Go ahead, make fun of me and get it out of your system Nat. I'll just be resting my head while you do it."

"I don't know who you take me for, Rinoa. What I asked was a genuine question there. We were worried." she stressed. This nearly had Rinoa fall off her seat. "I mean, nobody should have to spend that much time in an infirmary or with him for that matter. That's just asking for your brain to get warped."

'..._So much for that touching moment._' the raven-haired girl's mind quipped.

"Actually, I don't mind being in infirmaries, it's hospitals I don't like. And besides, he was passed out so I don't think it would have mattered if he was there or not. I only talked to his mother and Dr. Kadowaki."

"_-His mother?_" all three teenagers chorused.

'_Aw...hell. I can't believe I let that one slip._'

"Erm...yeah, she was there for awhile too. She uh...was talking to Dr. Kadowaki and sorta said one or two things to me. That's all."

"C'mon Rin, there's no need to hide stuff from us. Just say what really happened." Eden coaxed.

"It's nothing, really." she dismissed. "She only talked to me for a second because I just happened to still be there."

Even though she was behind her, Rinoa could almost feel Nat roll her eyes. "_Riight._.. And I assume we're supposed to believe that his mom conveniently came ten seconds before you were out the door and had a small chat with you? C'mon Rinoa, Kadowaki must have asked you to stay until she came for some reason. I doubt she'd be able to get there **that** fast after he was admitted."

Now Rinoa really felt like banging her head on the table.

'_Ugh, this is just great. I can't tell them that she wanted me to stay so that Squall's mom could thank me for bringing him because it wouldn't make sense unless if I explained that I fought with him tooth-and-nail to convince him to go in the first place. And if I told them I was bringing Squall his homework to his house for the next couple of days, they're liable to have a field day with that._'

'_...Well, I guess I'll have to pick the lesser of two evils here._'

"Okay..." she conceded tiredly. "Dr. Kadowaki asked me to stay just in case if his mom had a question that I might be in a better position to answer. I thought she said that because I saw the condition he was in before he got there, but she kind of tricked me with her wording. When his mom asked how Squall was going to keep up in school after she was told that he'd have to stay home for the week for what he had, I realized that that's the kind of question Dr. Kadowaki was expecting her to ask. So in the end, I kind of got roped into being the lucky student who's going to bring his homework to his house."

"No wonder you didn't want to tell us." Eden added. "I'd be embarrassed to get tangled up in that kind of mess. Some people would get the wrong idea."

Lucy broke into a huge smile. "I think what Eden means is that Nat would bury you alive."

"Har, har, har... How did I just _know _you were going to say something like that?" Nat retorted sarcastically.

With an equal amount of sarcasm, she replied, "I _don't _know, maybe you're psychic..."

Just before it looked like something was going to start, Eden intervened. "Guys...stop it. Rinoa doesn't need you two going down each other's throats right now after what just happened to her."

Rinoa grimaced. '_I didn't mean it like this was some kind of tragedy; it's not__** that**__ big a deal. But I guess it's better if they think that I perceive it that way.' _

'_Hyne, I feel so dirty though...They're treating him as if he was some kind of walking disease and I'm not doing anything to stop it. That's equally as bad, if not worse than people having the wrong idea of me. I'm asking him help me fix the misconception everyone has of me and I don't even have the decency to stop this from slipping through my fingers?_'

'_I'm a horrible person..._'

"No, it's okay, I'll deal with it myself." Rinoa abruptly got up from Nat's seat. "I'm going to go see if I can collect some of his stuff now to get a head start this to save my back from lugging around a mountain of his homework later. Bye."

And with that, she left the classroom faster than either one of the three could have incoherently mumbled a, '..._Huh?_'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Whether it was by design or compulsion, Rinoa's legs had carried her to the infirmary. The whole thing about collecting homework was a ruse to get out of the classroom; no teacher in their right mind assigned homework on the first day back. Well...at least the ones who weren't naive with inexperience or chronic slave drivers. With her footsteps echoing eerily on the cold, sterile flooring, Rinoa stopped as soon as she passed the room's threshold. From where she was standing, no one, not even Dr. Kadowaki, appeared to be in the room. Her footsteps had been the only source of noise moments prior.

That was, until the sound of a loud sneeze reverberated throughout the room.

Rinoa arched an eyebrow curiously. '_Is he still here...?_'

When another pair of sneezes and some rustling noises seemed to have come from the other side of the curtain divider where she knew Squall had been resting before, it pretty much answered her question for her.

Approaching the curtain slowly, Rinoa purposely scuffed her feet across the floor to give him a heads up of her being there. By the time she was at the foot of the material divide, she hadn't heard anything else from the other side that indicated that he was awake or, at the very least, pretending to be asleep.

Rinoa put an ear near the curtain. Rewarded with nothing for her efforts, her mind started to see-saw with the next course of action she should take; ultimately boiling down to whether or not she should peek through the curtains to confirm her suspicions.

"_**...There's no use hiding, I can see your feet and I heard you walk over here.**_"

Rinoa poked her head through the curtain sheepishly. "...How did you know it was me?"

"_-I didn't." _he stated dully, propping himself against the bed's headboard. _"What I said was that there was no use hiding._"

"Oh." Cue reddening cheeks. "So uh...where did Dr. Kadowaki and your mom go?"

He gave her a perplexed look. "._..I didn't know my mother was here._" He proceeded to rub his eyes with this thumb and forefinger. "_I just woke up so I don't know anything._" He stopped rubbing his eyes and regained the look he had before. "_-Why are you here?_"

"Well, I know how miserable it can be to be stuck in a place like this alone so... I thought I'd visit for a little bit if you weren't gone already. We weren't doing anything in class anyway."

He slunk back down and rolled over to face the other way. What he said next was barely audible. "._..I don't need company._"

"Fair enough." she replied coolly. "But whether you wanted company or not, I wanted to tell you something so you're not shocked by it later on."

When he didn't say or do anything in response, Rinoa was slightly annoyed by this. "So are you up to listening to the one little thing I have to say or would you prefer the surprise of having me barge into your room some day this week and have me explain then?"

Almost in shock, he turned back over and in another swift motion; his upper body was against the headboard again. "_—What?_"

"After you fell asleep, your mom came in and talked with Dr. Kadowaki. I was still there at the time because she asked me to stay in case if your mom had any questions that I could answer better than she could. Anyways, to make a long story short, I'm going to be bringing you your homework for the next week or so."

He sighed. "..._Great._"

Despite her best efforts, Rinoa couldn't help but be miffed by this off-hand comment. "I didn't have to do this you know."

"_That wasn't directed towards you," _he started to clarify, _"it was directed towards staying home._"

Before she could stop herself, she blurted out the first thought that came to mind. "Why? I'm going to give you your homework and help you go through most of it. You won't fall behind."

He shook his head. "..._It's not that._"

Rinoa looked at him curiously.

"..._Please, I don't feel like talking anymore._" he rasped. "_My throat's killing me._"

"I understand. Well, I'll see you when I see you then. Take it easy."

When he nodded, she walked away and closed the curtains. She waited a good moment before leaving the room altogether though.

'_I'm glad to get that out of the way. Hyne only knows what would have happened if his mom didn't tell him about the arrangements and I came over unannounced. I think he would have had a heart attack._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

As she leisurely walked around the corridors, Rinoa consciously stopped every so often, trying to kill time. Going back immediately wouldn't be exactly advantageous no matter which way she looked at it. Save for the word game and maybe the internet, there wasn't much to do and even then, it wasn't worth running the risk of receiving some kind of consequence for going out of class without having technical permission or the possibility of being confronted by the three girls without any homework to show for her sudden disappearing act.

So to put it in short, the theory circulating through her brain at the moment was the one where she hypothesized that the less time she was physically present in class, the less likely she could get in trouble. And to test this theory, she was planning to show up just as the bell rang so that she could get in and out to retrieve her backpack cloaked underneath the veil of the boisterous outflow of students eager to leave the room. And so, with five minutes still left to waste, Rinoa decided to make use of this time to stop by the main hallway circular fountain's ledge to sit down and rest her now-throbbing feet.

Well...that _was_ the plan before Mrs. Loire suddenly came into the view and went over to where she was, carrying a sizeable bundle of papers under her right arm. This gave Rinoa the impression that she was going to lose her job as homework courier was as fast as she got it.

But for whatever reason or another, she decided to humour the woman a little. "So is that all of Squall's work for the week?"

When Raine briefly smiled at her, Rinoa couldn't help but fleetingly wonder if Squall looked that way if he were to smile, given the strong resemblance. Trying to think of a valid situation where that would happen or to even mentally picture him smiling in the first place was another story however. That said task was so difficult and took up so much energy that Rinoa almost didn't catch what the woman said afterward.

"I would hope so. I'd be concerned if a pile this big was anything less than a week's worth."

"I take it that you haven't seen the workload we get before the midterm then?" the teenager joshed.

"Heard of it, maybe, seen it, no. Squall tends to lock himself in his room with his books days on end to study whenever any sort of test is near."

Rinoa couldn't help but laugh a little. "That doesn't surprise me. I always see him with his nose in some kind of textbook or doing homework for some class. I'm one of his partners for the assignments we get in our fourth period class and I don't think our group's gotten anything lower than an A on our papers."

Although she still had a hint of a smile on her face, Mrs. Loire's overall expression turned to one of curiosity. "If you don't mind me asking, how long have you been here at Balamb Garden?"

"Since this October, why do you ask?"

Her face regained its previous qualities. "Ah, that explains it. Well...believe it or not, my son wasn't always the studious type."

Rinoa's eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. "Really? I had the impression that he was the kind of person who was always like that."

"No, it's true. Ever since this school year started, I noticed that he's been applying himself far more than he's ever done before. However," Her voice turned sepulchral. "...I have a favour to ask of you."

The teenager blinked. What favour could she be asking for if it followed her saying that Squall was applying himself a lot more than he used to? Although almost none of it made sense, Rinoa still nodded her head, albeit hesitantly. Something in her gut was telling her that this was probably going to a more logical request than it initially sounded.

"Even though I already have all of the notes here, I want to give these to you so that you can still come over to the house to give them to him."

Rinoa sat there speechless. ...That wasn't logical at all.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments **– I do realize that this chapter is kind of short and I apologize for it, but I couldn't help but feel that it wrapped up nicely there.

...Anywho, hope you guys liked it anyway. Comments are always welcome. :)

_-Emerald-Latias_


	18. Chapter XVII – The Invalid

**Author's Notes – **Sorry for the lateness of this chapter, I started this right before I had to more-or-less devote all my time to study for, not to mention write my finals for this school term. So now that I have some free time, hopefully I'll get back to the swing of things again.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XVII – The Invalid**

**-**

_And if strength is born from heartbreak,  
Many mountains I could move,  
And if walls could speak I'd pray,  
That they would tell me what to do._

_**-Rise Against, Drones.**_

-

Rinoa was thankful that she'd been sitting when Raine had said this – who knew what would have happened otherwise.

Suddenly, a good explanation for her request came to mind. "So... I suppose you wanted to do it this way so you wouldn't have to worry about Squall trying to do all of the work in one shot?"

She shook her head. "Although that's another good reason to keep the work with you, I'm afraid that's not it. The reason I'm asking for this favour is because I think he could use the company."

If Rinoa thought her initial request was worthy of raising an eyebrow, surely her explanation was worth raising both. "I don't mean to sound disrespectful but, I think Squall would only appreciate me bringing the work and explaining it, not my company."

"I realize my son would give you that impression but," Putting the bundle of papers down, Raine sat beside her on the circular fountain's ledge, "-I think it would do him some good to have a bit of a distraction from school and work. He's been spending so much energy in his schoolwork this year that I can't help but feel like he's going to burn himself out soon."

Rinoa felt a little more at ease – her request didn't sound so absurd anymore. In fact, the teenager understood where she was coming from. If memory served, she had written something in her journal a while ago about Squall and work to that effect.

"_Well then.._.what if I tried fitting in some mini conversations while I explain the homework to him? ...I'm sure that'd be a good compromise as long as I'm not setting myself up to catch the Estharian flu from staying longer."

Despite the eerie resemblance, if there was one characteristic that Squall didn't inherit from his mother it was her inherent ability to change between a negative expression to a positive one in no time flat.

"..._I_ _think_ _that'll work._" she mentioned wryly before she said something else in passing. "-And just so you know, the doctor told me that after the initial infection, the Estharian flu can't be passed between people as long as no personal items are shared."

In spite of her better judgement, the teenager had the teeniest of smirks creeping at the corners of her lips. '_So I suppose that I won't be getting the Estharian flu anytime soon then. If I do, then I __**know**__ something's wrong._'

"…So I guess this'll work out then?"

"...Oh, you don't know how relieved I am. Thank you." Raine got back up and picked up the sizeable paper stack beside her and handed her the first couple of pages. "I'll hide the rest of these in my closet and give a certain amount to you before you leave whenever you're over. Speaking of which, would tomorrow or even the day after be a good day for you to start?"

Rinoa got up as well, dusting off her pants. "Tomorrow's good for me. So...did you want me to come over everyday, every other day or even something else?"

"If you wouldn't mind, I think that if you came over every day, having a bit of structure would be good for him."

"Okay, sure. I'll see you then."

After she nodded in response, the teenager started to walk towards the main elevator. It was only a simple hop, skip and jump away before Rinoa was close enough to absentmindedly push the elevator's up button.

'_Hopefully this'll make up for what happened earlier in class Squall.' _She put her hand down from the button slowly. _'...Hopefully._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Approaching the classroom door, Rinoa stopped right before the door's opening to consult her watch. There was still another minute to go before that elusive bell would toll. Still figuring that it would be unwise to show up any sooner, the teenager cautiously decided to wait it out by leaning against the wall, keeping a vigilant watch over her light blue timepiece.

"Hey, long time no see."

Rinoa's head jolted up.

'_Phew...false alarm._' her mind assuaged. It was only Ryan.

"Yeah, I suppose it has been a while." she meekly replied. "Um...How have you been doing?"

"Good, good. Can't complain." He leaned against the wall beside her. "-Well...as long as I don't think of my crazy sisters' antics."

Rinoa tossed him a perplexed look. ".._.Crazy sisters?_"

"What, can't a guy call his sisters crazy? They're all going baby-crazy or something. It's all I hear about nowadays."

The teenager had to smirk. "Well it's not every day when one of their friends is going to have a baby."

"Yeah I know, but it does get annoying when they won't shut up about it. You'd swear that _they're_ the ones having babies. Tch. Being the only guy in the family sucks – too much estrogen everywhere."

"Hey!" she chided indignantly. "...You do realize you're talking to a girl, _right?_"

"I know, I know, but you're different."

Rinoa playfully rolled her eyes. "Gee, thanks."

Now Ryan was the one rolling his eyes. "That's not what I meant. What I meant by that is that you're a lot easier to talk to than most girls. Well...when you're not surrounded by Seifer and Squall that is."

"Well...that situation's kind of hard to avoid considering I'm their partner for fourth period stuff. Not to mention I'm also Seifer's friend and I um...ended up volunteering myself to bring Squall his homework since he's sick and I don't live far from his house."

After the words left her mouth, Rinoa noticed that Ryan grimaced for a fraction of a second before his expression went predominantly-neutral again. "Yeah, I heard about that. How did you manage that one?"

"...Lets just say when you're sitting in on a conversation where one person asks how her son will keep up in school, the other suggests having a student bring the homework over and they both look at you right after, you kind of have no choice but to say yes."

"Ah, say no more. I am like the king of getting suckered into stuff by my sisters so I can totally relate. Was it like one of those suggestions that you just know that they said it on purpose just so you'll take the hint?"

"Yeah, that was exactly it."

"I figured that much." he concluded. "So is the homework thing as big of a deal as they're all making it in there?"

Rinoa gave him a curious look. "Who's _they_?"

"'_They' _would be Adrienne's friends minus Ivy. I kept on overhearing them make theories to explain why you left the room so suddenly. And just as a heads up, they're not all pretty. The particularly nasty ones sprouted right after Squall's mom came in to get his work from Instructor Trepe."

The raven-haired girl froze for a moment. '_Crap, I didn't even think of that possibility...There goes all hope of downplaying this. Now they'll probably think I was lying about something and I'll get interrogated tenfold._' A minor sigh escaped. '..._With friends like these who needs enemies._'

"No, it's not a big deal, really." she mumbled. "...Thanks for the heads up."

He nodded his head with a tiny smirk. "No prob. It's what friends are for, right?"

"Yeah..." Then an idea struck inside her noggin. "Say Ryan...could you do me a favour?"

He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "Sure. What is it?"

"Could you go in class and get my backpack that's near my seat? I want to avoid being seen in class because I really _don't_ feel like being interrogated by all of them today if what you said was true."

"Yeah, I could do that." When he stopped leaning against wall, Ryan cast her his trademark snarky smirk. "But I hope you know that I'm only doing this because I like you, you got that?" he added jokingly.

Rinoa couldn't resist a smirk of her own. "_Thank you Ryan._"

"Like I said before, no prob."

And with that, he went into the classroom and came back out instants later just as the bell rang, but before the students started pouring out of the classroom. Rinoa exhaled in relief as she started walking back towards the main elevator, stowing away the pages Raine had given her inside the knapsack Ryan had handed her a second prior; she'd just escaped a potential grilling.

"—_Rinoa?_" a bodiless female voice called out to her in the distance.

Correction. She _thought_ she'd escaped a potential grilling. As she turned around at the foot of the elevator, Rinoa was thankful for a least one thing; the fact that it wasn't Lucy, Nat, Eden or even Adrienne calling out to her. It had been Ivy.

Feigning ignorance, Rinoa responded to her call by saying, "What's up Ivy?"

As the elevator doors opened, the two teenagers went inside. Instead of waiting for some other students to come inside as well, Ivy immediately pressed the button to shut the doors and proceeded to press the button for the first floor. The faint hum of the elevator's gears going in motion preceded the other teenager's reply by a few seconds.

Looking down at her hands for a moment, she let out what seemed to be a therapeutic sigh and looked back up.

"...I finally had enough."

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. "_Enough...of what?_"

"I've had enough my alleged _friends'_ attitudes." she said plainly, the end of her sentence laced with a little more venom. "The instant you must have left, they started making all these ridiculous theories about you leaving and I couldn't just ignore them and continue with my work with Adrienne and Ryan. I tried defending you and what came out of it...well, it was the last straw for me. As of now, you, Adrienne and Alexis are the only friends I have left."

"I'm...so sorry it had to happen this way...because of me." she choked out. "I'm _really_ sorry."

"No," Ivy argued, "-this was coming for a long time. And if anything, I should be thanking you. If it wasn't for all of this, I would have never had the courage or the opportunity to stand up to them. Not to mention, it was the least I could do after all you've done for me."

"That was nothing, really..." she dismissed. "Besides, if I were in your position, I'm sure you'd do the same for me."

"Well, I'd rather not have you go through another close call like the one you had in November Rinoa."

Rinoa's heart stopped the instant her mouth closed at the end of her sentence. It hit her like a ton of bricks. The words which fuelled that response ...why did those words come out from her mouth in the first place? Those words shouldn't have been thought of, nevermind spoken aloud. Ever.

She leaned against one of the elevator's cold metallic sides. Life was so confusing at this moment. One minute, it was looking up, the next; it was a vicious whirlwind of disaster laying waste to simplicity and hope left, right and center.

__

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Tuesday, January 4th -_

_Ever since yesterday, things have been a little hectic at school. It's almost been like a tug-o-war with me and Adrienne as the ropes being pulled back and forth between Ivy and the others. Well... I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't like that for a while now, but it's just that it's getting a heck of a lot more obvious than it ever was before. And yet, despite what must have been said when I was gone the second time on Monday, I can't use it as an excuse to stop hanging out with the gang. I know that that sounds just as stupid as someone who's in an abused relationship who won't get out of it simply because they're downplaying the signs but, seeing as I didn't actually hear what was said, I have to play the part of the dummy here. Not to mention I have to keep what Squall said about not making things obvious in mind too. So in a way, turning a blind eye to all of this is more of an act of self-preservation than anything else, really._

_I mean; if I were to stop hanging out with them altogether, they'd catch wind of the change quickly and possibly make more theories about me. And needless to say, I __**really **__don't want to risk having a couple of nasty rumours flying around. They may be nice people in general, but if you get on their bad side, especially Nat's, you're practically volunteering yourself to be rumour-material. Well...I've never seen them make up stuff like that (outside Nat's rumour about Squall), but I think there's always the possibility considering how much they all like hearing and talking about gossip like the seventeen-year old girls that they are. _

_Regardless of that can of worms waiting to burst, as of today, I'm officially Squall's homework courier-slash-explainer. Hyne, I hope this won't be a disaster when I walk over there in a few minutes. I made sure to pay ultra-close attention today in school and made a couple of experimental writing exercises (thankfully none of them are 'buttered toast' worthy) just to stay on top of this. Gee, with all of this preparation I'm making myself do, I think I should consider being a tutor or even a teacher when I'm older. Hm, there's a thought. Come to think of it, it was kind of cool organizing all of this stuff. Hee...I think the Garden's academic advisor would be happy with that thought. Well, at least it was a more concrete idea than the truly inspiring 'Um...I dunno?' I gave her about a month ago._

_Anyways...I'd better get going. Squall's not going to wait forever to get his daily fix of homework._

_...Is it just me or did that read wrong?_

_-Wait...did I just ask for an opinion when I perfectly-well know that no one else will be reading this except me?_

_Hyne am I ever going loony. Bad Rinoa. You shouldn't break the fourth wall. Erm...either way, here goes nothing._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After gathering what she needed to bring, Rinoa was already out the door and following a straightforward five-minute walk on the shovelled sidewalks, the teenager found herself at the corner of Page Street, eying the small beige house which lay in front of her. As she stood there idly, the bitter winds started to pick up and blow the top layer of the snow on the lawn in her general direction. Deciding that there was no point in shielding herself in vain, Rinoa cautiously walked along the edge of the stone pathway on the immediate right side of the driveway and on the immediate left side of the snowed-over yard, which was roughly the center of the lot's property. The path she was carving through the heel-deep snow was directly aligned with the front door. It was only a matter of a moment before she plowed her way to the long sideways-running porch and it was yet another before she actually had the nerve to poke the doorbell. Then she had a microscopic grace period of twenty seconds before Raine opened the door and let her in.

She was here, Rinoa vaguely pondered, she was really _here_.

After being ushered inside the house, the teenager kicked the snow off her boots and skilfully took them off with a couple quick movements of her feet – a feat only achieved by many years of lazy mastery as far as hands-free boot shucking were concerned. In the following moments, Rinoa took in her surroundings quietly as she was in the process of taking off her coat. The house's small appearance on the outside did not belie its somewhat cramped-looking interior.

From where she was standing in the narrow hallway, there was a door, presumably connecting to the garage, a little further to the left and it was accompanied with a door-less opening further down and two more similar openings on the right side. The end of the hallway was marked with two separate sets of stairs; the left set of stairs going up while the right set went down. The floors were covered with pristine cherry-wood paneling and the walls painted a warm shade of beige.

"I can take your coat." Raine offered. After the coat was relinquished, she motioned towards the right-hand set of stairs. "Squall's room is on the only door to the right downstairs. I told him about you coming today so he shouldn't be surprised as long as you knock first. And in case if you need it, there's a bathroom down there too. It's the second door on your left, directly across from his room."

Rinoa nodded in comprehension. "Is he doing any better than yesterday?"

"A little, yes."

"Good. Well, I guess I'd better go down there now," she said with a tiny smile, "I don't think he'd want to wait for this-" She pointed to her bag filled with homework, "any longer."

"I'll be in the kitchen preparing some soup for supper if you need me – it's the alcove on the left just before the end of the hallway and the stairs."

'_So the only door-less opening on the left is the kitchen. Gotcha._'

With another silent nod, Rinoa started walking down the corridor. As she passed the other openings on the right, she took mental notes of what was behind them. The first held a quaint little dining room with an oak table taking up a fair amount of space in the middle of it and the second seemed to be an entrance to a living room of sorts with a teal couch along part of the far wall that she could see. Taking a quick glance to her left, she could see the kitchen alcove Raine had been referring to earlier before both sets of stairs, one of which she was descending right now.

The downstairs wasn't anywhere near as bare and dank as she'd been expecting it to be, as most basements were. In fact, it wasn't really a basement in any sense of the word, more like a slightly lower addition to the house – especially since the there was roughly six steps separating this section from the main level. The walls of the relatively-small corridor were also painted in the same hue of beige as the rest of the house and the corridor also shared the same type of flooring.

Walking down the hallway, Rinoa had a sense of foreboding looming overhead as she neared closer to his room; each footstep marked its own individual and distinct echo on the hardwood flooring. By the time she reached the foot of his door, a sensation of déjà vu smacked her across the face. Despite the different barrier separating them, it was just like the trepidation and hesitation she felt yesterday. Regardless of the knowledge of being expected and whatnot, the game of '_should she or should she not knock_' was still ping-ponging inside her brain. Overcoming her irrational fears, Rinoa began to raise her hand so that she could lightly rap at his door. Or she would have if a loud creaking noise behind her hadn't diverted her attention.

"..._You're early._"

"Gah!" Rinoa nearly skyrocketed ten feet after hearing Squall's still-hoarse voice behind her. Apparently he must have come from the door on the other side, which also explained why she heard a loud creak earlier. After recovering from the shock, she turned around to face him. Clad in a pair of navy track pants and a form-fitting black t-shirt, it was easy to see that he must have felt better than yesterday – his face didn't seem as pale and he didn't look nearly as exhausted. "Um...sorry about the yelling, I was expecting you to be in your room, not behind me. Feeling any better?"

"_A little._" he mumbled. "..._Do you have today's work?_"

'_Ah Squall, straight to the point as ever._'

She plucked out the pages from her bag to show him briefly before putting them back just as fast. "Do you have some place set up to go through some of this, or are we just going to plant ourselves wherever we can find some chairs?"

He shrugged. "_I have some chairs and some space on my desk for this or we could use the dining room table. ...It doesn't matter to me._"

"Well, I wouldn't want you to walk around too much so...I suppose your desk's fine."

Unceremoniously, he proceeded to open the door to his room and they both went in. One simple glance and Rinoa already had two adjectives to describe the place – bare and immaculate. With not even an article of clothing or a speck of dust on the floor or anything piled-up or out of place on the respective pieces of furniture, it was like the epitome of everything that a typical teenage boy's room _shouldn't _consist of.

Standing in the room's lower left-hand corner where the door they'd passed through led them, Rinoa's eyes fluttered left and right to drink in the new sight she was currently witnessing. On the immediate left wall, there was a chair and an uncluttered long table and in the far left corner, there seemed to be a set of white folding doors for what had to be a modestly-sized closet behind them. In the middle of the wall facing her, there was the desk he'd previously mentioned with only a black laptop and a small stack of textbooks and regular books on top of it. That said piece of oak furniture was accompanied by yet another chair. Taking a simple look at the opposing wall of that one, she saw that there was a simple dresser.

As he went over to take the chair near the table to literally carry it single-handedly to the desk, Rinoa briefly took note of the bed in the far right corner and how sharp the corners of the neatly-folded charcoal bedspread looked. Well, there was that and how the singular high window above the desk seemed to be the only source of light outside the light bulb overhead. Her assessment of the room in which she stood immediately came to an abrupt halt the very instant the chair's wooden legs made a hard clanking noise on the hardwood floor when he nearly dropped it beside the other chair at the desk. Once he turned around and made eye contact, she definitely knew that it was time to stop sight-seeing and start tutoring.

"So which subject did you want me to start helping you with first, Lit or History?" she asked while she approached the desk, "-Or did you want me to just give you the notes to look at and you tell me if you need help on stuff? Either way, I'm afraid you're on your own for Calculus since I don't have that class."

"._..I'll be fine to do the History homework on my own. I've already read the chapter we're doing._"

Rinoa arched an eyebrow. "So...is this your way of telling me that you only need my help for Lit?"

He sighed. "..._Yes._"

"Okay, so let's get started then." She dug out the necessary pages, using her fingers as dividers for each subject in her one hand. "Where did you want me to put the Calculus and History pages?"

"_The table over there's fine._" he answered, pointing to the table near the door.

When Rinoa walked over to put the other pages where he wanted them, she heard a set of loud bark-like coughs. Even a moment later when she set the pages down, she could still hear another string of worrisome coughs. She turned around only to see him devoutly sitting on one of the chairs by the desk with his hand covering his mouth.

Rinoa bit the inside of her lip. "Are you going to be okay enough for me to go through with this with you or should I come back when you're better?"

"_I'll-_" Another boisterous coughing fit weaved itself into his sentence. ".._.be fine._"

The raven-haired hesitantly approached the desk and sat down in the left-hand empty seat. "Okay, but if you start coughing up blood, I'm going to tell your mom."

"_That won't hap-_" he attempted to counter before yet another series of wet coughs escaped the confines of his throat.

"Um, by any chance, did you actually rest or did you spend all day doing something like cleaning your room?" In the first moment he wasn't coughing his lungs out, Rinoa caught a fleeting expression which suggested that he did the latter, ".Please don't tell me you were _actually_ cleaning your room Squall."

"Oh for the love of Hyne...I can't believe I guessed that. Squall, you should have been resting."

"..._Easy for you to say._" he groused. "_You're not the one who's stuck at home, forced to do absolutely nothing._"

'_He's got a point there Rinoa.' _her mind conceded. _'You'd go batty too if you were confined to a bed, only allowed to rest._'

"Okay, so maybe it would be boring to lie down in bed all day but you still have to take it easy to get better."

"..._Whatever. Let's just get to work._"

"I'll only start if you promise to try to rest for the next couple of days you're at home."

He shot her an incredulous look. "_Let me get this straight. You're going to withhold my homework from me if I don't rest later? Why do you care what I do during the day?_"

"I care because if you keep on running yourself ragged all day, you won't get better and that's not good for your health. Or if you can't find the logic in that argument, I could say that I care because if you keep this up, you won't get better and I'll have to come over for more days than I planned to come over for. You can take your pick."

"_Then I apologize for wasting your precious time._" he sarcastically spat. "_Feel free to leave if that's what you want._"

She shook her head. "No. I'm sticking around."

He furrowed his eyebrows in disbelief.

When he didn't say anything afterward, she continued. "I'm not leaving because I'm keeping my promise to help you in Lit and I came prepared with a bunch of writing exercises to go through with you _regardless_ of how difficult you're going to be."

"_Fine._"

"Well...?"

He narrowed his eyes. "_Well what?_"

"Are you going to take it a little more easy after I leave? I'm coming over every day so I'll be able to tell if you don't."

"_I'll...try._"

"Thank you." Her face had a hint of a smile on. "So I take it that this was why you didn't want to stay at home, because doing nothing would drive you nuts?"

"_Yeah._"

"I can imagine. Whenever I'm stuck doing nothing, I start to think too much for my own good...and then I always end up depressing myself."

Although he didn't say anything outright, Rinoa could simply tell by his expression that something she said in her last sentence resonated with him. Which part, she wouldn't know. But at any rate, she was glad that her comments weren't falling on deaf ears and that she was actually connecting with him on some level, no matter how trivial it may have been. Hyne only knew that this mutual agreement wouldn't bode well if they were always on different levels.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments **– Once again I'm so sorry for the wait, I finished my finals on the 12th and I've been working non-stop at this ever since. I was only halfway through Rinoa's conversation with Raine when my exams came up, so yeah...

Hehe... in case if you guys were wondering, I picked that Rise Against song snippet not only because of the general content of the part of lyrics I chose, but because I found the lines, '_And if walls could speak I'd pray / That they would tell me what to do._' kind of ironic that considering what Squall said in the game. Also, I didn't want to start writing about Rinoa and Squall doing through the work because I was already close to five thousand words and I figured that this made a cleaner division without forcing myself to write a gargantuan chapter and risk having it drag on and on. That way, I can have the entire focus on that next chapter.

Either way, I hope you guys liked it all the same and that I can update really fast again,

_-Emerald-Latias_


	19. Chapter XVIII – A Poetic Approach

**Author's Notes** – Well, hopefully the relative speediness of this chapter of Reinventing Me will make up for the seventeen-day wait of the last one. Enjoy!

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XVIII – A Poetic Approach**

_-_

_It's driven me before and it seems to be the way,  
That everyone else gets around,  
But lately I'm beginning to find,  
That when I drive myself my light is found,  
Whatever tomorrow brings,  
I'll be there with open arms and open eyes._

_**-Incubus, Drive.**_

-

Wanting to make the start of the tutoring session somewhat official, Rinoa plopped the stapled set of Lit pages down on the desk to catch his attention. Unfortunately, the noise of the paper hitting the desk wasn't anywhere near as dramatic as she'd hoped as the pages simply fluttered down. Nonetheless, the lesson of the day had officially started.

"Have you ever heard of haikus Squall?" she inquired.

Being a teenage boy, Rinoa wasn't the least bit surprised when he replied by saying that he hadn't. Most boys avoided all forms of poetry like the plague and she couldn't blame him for that in the slightest, especially when she avoided most of that stuff too.

"That's fine if you didn't know, the guidelines for writing a haiku poem are simple to explain anyway. They're just three line poems with a five-syllable count in the first and third lines and seven syllables in the second. The more traditional ones have a seasonal theme somewhere in them."

Squall glanced over at the page on the desk. When he looked back at her, she noticed a slightly morose quality to his facial features. "_...Did she start a poetry unit?"_

Rinoa wrinkled her nose. "Yeah...she did. And nobody's happy about it either. At least haikus are one of the easier kinds of poems to understand so you won't get far behind as long as you can write a half-decent one and present it to the class."

"_...When do we have to present one of these...things?_"

She did a sort of half-shrug. "I think presentations start in the middle of or late next week."

When he swore under his breath right after, Rinoa had the feeling that he was banking on the possibility of him still being sick enough to not attend the class when they'd be reciting their poems out loud.

"Seeing as your voice still sounds a little hoarse, I'm not going to be working on the public speaking portion of this with you today, just the writing. Is that okay?"

He nodded.

"Okay. Now I think that the trick to writing haikus is just getting the five-seven-five syllable count down pat. After that, the rest should come easily. When we're going to be presenting these, I think Kolp will only be looking for the proper form, not anything super-artsy." She paused for a moment. "So as long as you can properly count the number of syllables in your lines, you should be fine. I find that counting with my fingers as I go helps, what about you?"

"..._I just count them in my head._"

"So you'll be fine to write one then?" When he shrugged, Rinoa slid a piece of paper and a pen his way while keeping another page and pen for herself. "I'll give you a bit of time to write a haiku and I'll write one at the same time just for fun. Don't worry if it doesn't seem any good to you, I'll only be looking to see if you've got the general idea of it. Just tell me when you're done."

"_Is there a specific theme?_"

"Nope." she replied candidly. "I want you to try writing something without extra guidelines first."

He turned away and immediately started to scribble stuff on his page. But before she turned to start her own poem, Rinoa couldn't help but briefly wonder about what his mother had said to her about his less studious past the other day. Was he one of those cases where he still was a smart student, just not as devoted to homework or was the choice to apply himself a conscious effort to pull his grades up?

'_Rinoa, get your head out of the clouds, he's already written a line and you haven't even written a thing.' _her mind chastised. _'He's going to be annoyed with you if he has to wait for you to catch up. You're supposed to be his tutor after all._'

Like a madwoman, Rinoa started jotting down her ideas on the page as fast as her fingers could count the syllables in them. Plenty of potential lines were scratched out, plenty of potential lines were reconfigured and reworded, but in the end, she ended up with something fairly well-made _despite_ the swirly royal blue clouds overhead and the sporadic holes in her page. By the time she was done, the edge of her right hand was smeared with residual blue ink and Squall was only halfway through his own poem. Rinoa inwardly grinned. Maybe she'd overacted a little, nay, a _lot_ here.

At least this would aide the illusion of her being the 'worldly authority' on the particular subject of poetry rather than a girl with a convenient knack for haikus. Hyne help them both if Instructor Kolp ever went into complex poems like sonnets or...whatever kinds of poems Literature teachers tortured students with.

Several minutes had passed before she noticed that he'd finally put down his pen.

"-Done?"

He listlessly slid his page in her direction. "..._Yeah._"

Taking a simple glance at it, Rinoa noticed that his penmanship was far neater than hers. Still, penmanship didn't count for everything; the content was just as important. And by the looks of things, it looked like he'd still need work in the '_autonomous creativity_' department.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Too tired to think,  
There's a light in the window,  
I should be in school._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"Um, it's a little disjointed Squall. The form's there but you have to work on only having one main idea or image you want to have per poem. In your haiku, you could probably make it work by cutting out the second and third lines and focus on the tired theme."

He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "..._I should have known that it wasn't good_."

"No, it was good for a first try. You should have seen my first try at one of these. I ended up writing about...hula hoops, no word of a lie. It worked out syllable-wise, but it was silly anyway you read it."

The other teenager stopped rubbing his eyes to look at her in disbelief. "._..Hula hoops?_"

Rinoa's face turned scarlet. "Yeah, I _really_ couldn't think of anything that day. I should have just described stuff in my surroundings and thoughts like you did. At least it would have saved me some embarrassment."

All of a sudden, the room seemed a lot quieter – metaphorically speaking, of course.

Rinoa bit her lip nervously as she looked at him. "...Did I say something wrong?"

He looked away. "_No._"

"Well I must have." she pointed out. "There was an awkward silence right after and then you looked away when you said no to me."

He looked back at her, his features seemingly contorted with an air of self-depreciation to them. "_I don't understand why you're trying to be so...nice when you know it was bad. Save your coddling for someone who needs it."_

"Okay, so maybe I didn't necessarily _have_ to tell you about my hula hoop haiku, but you can't expect to be perfect right off the bat. Even smart people can have subjects they're bad at. Just like dumb people like me can have subjects they're good at."

".._.You're doing it again._" he mentioned dryly.

After the words had left his mouth, it took Rinoa a matter of a moment to catch what he must have been referring to. "...Okay, I'll try to stop. But in the meantime, let's work on your haiku. Now since I assume that you have no problems with the technical form seeing as it already fits the five-seven-five format, how about we brainstorm together to replace the second and third lines so the tired theme runs through it?"

"_What-_" An errant cough escaped. "_-ever. ...My head is in such a fog that it'll be all the inspiration necessary._"

Almost immediately, Rinoa started counting with her fingers and once she figured it out, she scribbled something below the two lines she'd previously scratched out. Feeling his presence looming ominously over her right shoulder, she tilted her head ever so slightly to be face to face with him.

"That'll work. It's seven syllables." she remarked.

He furrowed his eyebrows. "_What are you talking about?_"

"_My. Head. Is. In. Such. A. Fog._ That's seven syllables."

He slightly recoiled from her. "_...I wasn't expecting you to repeat part of what I said._"

Rinoa passively shrugged. "Some things just happen by accident. Come to think of it, would 'can't I go to sleep?' be a good way to finish the poem? It's got five syllables and it more or less sums up the essence of the theme."

Now Squall was the one shrugging. "_Might as well. I wouldn't be able to think of anything anyways._"

"Okay, lemme write this down then-" She turned her head towards the page once more to write down the last line.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Too tired to think,  
My head is in such a fog;  
–Can't I go to sleep?_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"Wow. It turned out good." She looked back at him and gave him the page. "Read this."

He quickly perused the paper in his hand and gave it back to her afterwards. "_It's...much better._"

Rinoa however, would not accept the paper. Instead, she urged him to keep it in hand. "Save this for your presentation, I think it would be a good one to read in front of everyone."

".._.Okay._" he mumbled uncertainly.

Sensing his apprehension about her personal addition to the poem, she quickly added, "Don't worry about me writing the last line, I don't mind. It's the least I could do to help you with this."

"..._Thanks._" he said in a near-audible voice.

"It's no problem. Say...would you do me a favour by looking at mine? I could use an opinion on it since I was thinking of presenting it in class."

He gave her an uneasy look. "_Is this a joke?_"

Rinoa stared at him with a perplexed expression. "No. Why do you say that?"

"..._You're asking someone with no interest in poetry whatsoever. You'd be better off talking to a wall and getting __**its**__ opinion._"

"Then I suppose that's all the more reason to ask you." she asserted. When she noticed that his facial expression didn't flicker, she elaborated furthermore. "Think of it this way. If you don't like poetry and you think it's good, halfway-decent or at least something that's not snore-worthy, then it must be really good considering it's coming from someone who finds poetry boring."

After a moment or two of possible mental deliberation, Squall begrudgingly said something. "-_Fine...I'll look at it._"

Handing him her own page, Rinoa quietly hid her pleasant surprise – she'd been expecting a flat-out no.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_With a soft flutter,  
The dove changes direction–  
To an unknown land._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Roughly twenty seconds later, he set down the page and they exchanged glances. Rinoa felt unnerved, something about his gaze was a little off-putting.

"...Is it bad?" she asked timidly.

"_No, it's fine."_

"Then...why are you giving me that look-"

Before she could finish her sentence, he cut in. "-_It's too personal._"

"Um, I don't follow you."

"_The poem's an extended metaphor for what you're trying to achieve right now._" he explained rather flatly. "_You're substituting yourself for the dove._"

Rinoa was flabbergasted and at best, lost for words. "-How...did you get that idea? Aren't you...? I mean...I thought you said that you didn't like poems."

"_So? That doesn't automatically mean I can't analyze a short poem. Regardless, it doesn't hide the fact that you're subconsciously symbolizing your situation here._"

"Okay, so I won't present this poem the way I've written it here then." she stated calmly. "But do you think there's any way to save part of it though?"

"_If you change the second line it could be salvaged. Don't ask me what to replace it with because I have no idea._"

She nodded appreciatively. "I'll keep that in mind when I rewrite this later. Thanks."

"_It's...nothing._"

Rinoa had to smirk a little at his slightly hesitant tone. "Why do you sound so apprehensive? It's not like I'm going to tell anybody you gave me some good poetry advice if that's what you're so worried about."

"_I didn't give you poetry advice."_ he argued._ "There wasn't anything wrong with it like there was with mine. I gave you advice for what you came to me for._"

"Okay...so maybe it was, but why did you sound so uncomfortable then?"

After a long pause, whether unintentional or deliberate, he finally replied. "..._I'm not used to being thanked for things._"

"Well you might want to get used to it – especially if you're helping me out with my problem."

"_And I-" _A couple of coughs interrupted his would-be sentence._ "-suppose this is the part where I'm going to give you some advice on that?_" he noted as wryly as someone in his position could.

"If you don't mind; you never got around to saying anything the other day."

"_Fair enough. One question though."_

"Go ahead."

"_Do you normally wear your heart on your sleeve like this or was this a momentary lapse in judgement?_" he asked brusquely.

"Ah...I'm not sure. I would say no, but seeing as I didn't even catch this until you pointed it out, I wouldn't know if I've done it before. Then again, I don't normally share things I write with people."

"_...I wasn't talking about your writing."_ he corrected._ "I was talking about in general._"

"Oh. No, I usually don't. Well...I used to a long time ago, but not since I've been at Balamb Garden. Why do you ask?"

"_Two reasons. The first has to do with what I said on Sunday about raising people's suspicions and the second has to do with coping with the stupid things people say._"

"-Like the sort of comment that slipped out of my mouth after we'd been working in the library?"

"..._More or less. As long as you don't let the comments go to heart, you can take anything...You feel less pain, annoyance or ...whatever. The point is that it helps._"

"I understand what you mean. I shouldn't wear my heart on my sleeve because it'll tip people off about the change I'm trying to achieve and because I'll be more susceptible to being affected by the stupid things people say and do. Thanks. That was very good straightforward advice."

"_You're..." _He paused self-consciously. "-_welcome._"

"No problem." she replied with a tiny nod. "Now you can't tell me that saying 'You're welcome' was _that_ difficult."

"..._It'll take some getting used to._"

"That's okay. Everything takes time. It's just like learning how to write a good poem; it just takes baby steps to get there."

An exceptionally loud and painful-sounding cough coursed through his mouth. Despite the fact that his hand was muffling part of the noise, the sitting girl jumped a little. Even with the many coughing fits he'd had prior, none of them were even half as loud.

Rinoa looked at him quizzically. "You okay? You sounded like you had a small implosion there."

"_I'm..._" He quickly wiped something from his mouth using the back of his hand. "-_fine._"

'_No he's not. There's a small reddish splotch on the back of his hand. He's coughing up blood because I probably made him talk too much and it's aggravated his throat. He even sounds like he's fighting to keep his voice now._'

"...If you say so." she conceded. "Well...if it's okay with you, I'd like to end today's lesson here since we've pretty much covered everything a lot faster than I expected and since you said you'd be okay for History."

"_...I was-" _Cough. Cough. "_-under the impression you had more planned._"

"Well, to be honest, I wasn't sure how much trouble you'd have with haikus so...I had one writing activity in case if you had trouble with your syllable counts, another if you told me that you didn't understand my explanation of a haiku and a last one in case if you couldn't think of anything to write at all. But seeing as you didn't really have trouble in those areas...I don't think that it's necessary to go through them."

After he gave her a non-verbal sign that he was okay with her leaving, Rinoa got up from her chair and started gathering up her things on desk while Squall got out of his own seat and went to the other table to gather the other notes she'd put over there earlier. After she was finished packing up, the teenager went to look at her left wrist for the time only to realize that she didn't have her trusty watch on. Looking around the room, Rinoa noticed that there wasn't a clock in sight.

"Squall?" she called. He turned around roughly five seconds later. "Do you happen to know what the time is? I forgot my watch and my cell's not on me at the moment."

Luckily for Rinoa, when he turned around she could already see a black watch on his left wrist. However, after Squall went to lift his left arm a little to read the watch's digital face, instead of reciting the time to her, he took off the watch altogether and walked over to put the said timepiece on top of his dresser and grabbed another black object from up there.

"-Did your watch battery die?" she inquired. He turned around to face her.

"_Yeah._" He casually flipped open the other black 'object', a phone, and not even a second passed when he closed the top and put the cell back. "..._It's nearly four-thirty._"

"Thanks." Before she was about to leave however, something strange caught her attention. "What's that?"

At this point, his voice was borderline gone. ".._.What's what?_"

"Those small black marks on the inside of your wrist, where your watch used to be. What's that?"

"_Mar-_" There was yet another instance of a cough interrupting his speech. "_Marker._"

Rinoa quirked an eyebrow. "Marker?"

"_Yes._" he reiterated firmly. "_Marker._"

He coughed again, involuntarily giving her a full view of the allegedly marker-drawn markings when he went to cover his mouth with the back of his left hand.

'_That looks more like tattoo ink than marker. Oh well, there's no point in pestering him. I'll either wear out his voice box, make him cough up some more blood, annoy him enough to screw up any progress that's been made or all of the above._'

"Okay. I was just curious." she trailed off. "So I guess I'll see you tomorrow then. I wrote my e-mail address on the first page of your History notes so if you have any questions, e-mail them to me and I'll try to answer as fast as I can."

After he curtly nodded, Rinoa left his room.

'..._What in Hyne's name does 22-08 mean?_'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Following a quick hop up the stairs, Rinoa was informally greeted at the top of them by Mrs. Loire coming out of the kitchen alcove on her right. Out of respect, the teenager stopped. The older woman looked like she wanted a quick word with her.

"How was he?"

...And right she was.

"He was...good." Rinoa answered, feeling somewhat awkward about her choice of words. To her, what had just came out of her mouth felt more like something she should be saying to a parent of a kid she babysat, not the parent of an eighteen-year old she tutored. "Squall didn't give me a hard time or anything. I didn't try fitting in any extra conversation today because his voice sounded really hoarse and he was coughing an awful lot. I didn't want to aggravate it any further."

"That's fine."

"...Actually, when I'd accidentally found out that he had been cleaning his room today instead of taking it easy, I made an ultimatum to not bring his homework if he didn't start resting some more." she confessed. "He didn't give me any trouble after that though."

Raine pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Sometimes I swear that boy needs to be tied to his bed in order to take it easy." She lifted her hand away from her face. "Thank you for telling me."

"...It's no problem."

She nodded appreciatively. "Whether he'll admit it or not, I think he'll benefit from your visits Rinoa. Other than his family, it's not very often when he has someone who cares enough to try and set him straight."

A furtive blush crept on around her facial features. "I was only doing what I thought had to be done," she mumbled, "...it's wasn't a big deal, really."

"Regardless, I appreciate it all the same. Hold on-" She disappeared into the kitchen for a couple of seconds before coming back out again. And when she did, Raine handed her a small sheaf of papers. "Here's Squall's homework for tomorrow."

She briefly leafed through the pages before stowing them away in her bag and looking up at her again. "Thanks."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_**Beep-beep! Beep-beep! Beep-beep!**_

After the brief trek home through the snow-shovelled sidewalks, Rinoa had a bit of a surprise waiting for her on the dining room table – the cell phone she'd forgotten to bring with her when she went to Squall's was making intermittent beeping noises upon her arrival there.

Shucking her boots off and putting away her coat, Rinoa walked past her L-shaped living room and into the adjoining dining room where she picked up the aforementioned cell. The flip phone's display indicated that she had a missed call from Adrienne at four-twenty-three. It was ten to five right now. Figuring she had nothing to lose and that it wasn't too late, Rinoa flipped her phone open and started thumbing numbers. Placing it to her ear, it wasn't long before there was an answer at the other end. The teenager went upstairs to her room for more privacy. There, she sat on her bed.

"-_Hello?_"

"Hey, it's Rinoa. You called earlier?"

"_Yeah, I did. Would you like to come over to my house a little later on for a small get together for my sister's birthday? You don't have to bring a present or anything; I'm just inviting a few people over for some cake and ice cream._"

Just then, a past conversation concerning birthdays hit her.

"_**Oddly enough, we are. Her birthday is January 4th and mine and my brother's is December 31st. Mind you, the both of us were supposed to be born in February. Personally, I think that having my birthday on New Year's Eve is a much better deal than being born on Valentine's Day."**_

"-Sure. Who's all going to be there?"

"_It's just going to be you and Ivy." _

"I see."

"_Yeah, all three of us immediately thought of asking you two when our parents said that we could invite some people over. Plus, I think that if we were to invite more people, the cake wouldn't be big enough since Ryan's such a pig._"

Whether it was her brain playing tricks on her or not, Rinoa thought she heard on an indignant, '_-and you aren't?_' in the background.

"So what time do you want me over at Adrienne?"

"_Any time after seven is good._"

"Okay. I'll make sure I'll get there around that time then."

"_Awesome. I'll see you there._"

Before the other girl had the chance to hang up, Rinoa edged in one last thing. "Wait-"

"_Yeah?_"

"Do you know how's Ivy been doing since...she had that falling out with the others? I was too busy trying to prepare for my after-school homework thing with Squall that I haven't had the chance to talk to her at all today."

"_To be honest, I think she's a lot happier now._"

"Really?"

"_Yeah, I think so. Ivy never really liked the others anyway. When we both met the rest of the gang three years ago at some community event, I was the one more-or-less the link that tied everyone together as a group. When I befriended the others, I was already friends with Ivy for a long time so when I started to include them, I think she only befriended them just for my sake._"

"...I didn't know that."

"_Yeah, we all got along for a while but when we were all at the same school when I finally transferred to Balamb Garden, I started noticing that it was getting a little strained between them because we were spending a lot more time as a group than ever before. I'd always hoped that it would have sorted itself out in time, but with her surprise pregnancy...well, you know what ended up happening there._"

"It must have been hard being the one stuck in the middle like that though."

"_It is. Then again, I was the one who was responsible for it happening in the first place so I have to stick it out._" There was a pause. "_Speaking of which, how are you holding up Rin? I take it you're as exhausted as I am being shared between them like this._"

The morose tone Adrienne had recently adopted felt very alien to Rinoa's ears. "I'm okay. I've been running around a lot, but that's kind of expected for us people stuck in the thick of things, huh?"

"..._Yeah. You sort of have to hold your tongue a lot to avoid offending somebody._"

"I'll say." As Rinoa was saying this, her mind went directly to yesterday's incident, imagining how Adrienne must have forced herself to stay silent so that she could remain a neutral party while the theories went flying. She almost felt sorry for her.

"_Well, I have to go now Rin. Got to keep dork-wad from eating all of the cake._"

"Alright. See you later."

"_Definitely._"

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Two hours since the phone call and Rinoa found herself knocking on the Alts family's front door. It was only a matter of a split-second when the oak door opened to reveal Adrienne behind it.

Rinoa had to smile. "What do you have, radar?" she joshed.

"That's funny. I seem to remember saying that one to you last week when you answered the phone so quick that I thought you were sitting on it." the other girl commented matter-of-factly.

"So...I guess I'm returning the favour then?"

"Nevermind about that Rinoa, just come on in."

No sooner that it was said that the raven-haired girl had followed her words and let herself in. Once Adrienne closed the door, she directed her to the room on her immediate left, briefly mentioning that it was where they were eating the cake and that she'd be going to the kitchen to fetch a few things and then she'd be right back.

Stepping into the room, Rinoa was immediately reminded that this was the same place where Adrienne and Ryan's New Year's Eve slash birthday party had taken place – despite the drastic furniture rearranging.

The huge plasma TV and the leather couch on the opposite side of it were just about the only things that hadn't been moved back around. The other leather couch on the far wall had moved to the closest wall to the door, coffee tables which had been previously flanking either side of the television were now directly in front of both black couches. The stereo which had been in the room's far left-hand corner was put directly on the plasma's left side. And last, but not least, there was a full-sized rectangular table in the space the moved couch had been, surrounded by two chairs on each of the table's long sides and a chair on either extremity, one of which Ivy was currently sitting on.

Walking closer to that said far table, Rinoa humorously said, "Don't tell me you're having a party all by yourself Ivy."

The other girl turned her head towards the source of the noise and smiled. "Oh, wait until the cake gets here, then it'll be a real party for me." she replied, matching Rinoa's light-hearted tone perfectly, maybe slightly less energetic though.

The teenager pulled herself a seat beside her. "So how have you been holding out since, um..._yesterday?_"

"I'm good." she answered with a bit of a nod. "Best I've felt in a while actually."

Rinoa blinked in surprise. "_Oh_. That's good to hear."

"It gets better though."

"-Hm?"

Ivy mouth curved into a warm, gleeful smile as she placed her hands on her lap. "Right after we were in the elevator, I felt the baby kick for the first time."

Rinoa couldn't help but break into a smile of her own. "Oh...I bet that was exciting."

"It _was _though!" she beamed. "At first I thought it was just my stomach rumbling but when it happened again with a bit more force, I just knew it was the baby kicking. Oh-" She raised one of her hands up to her stomach. Her smile grew even larger. "-He just kicked again."

"Maybe he just wants some cake and ice cream." she joked.

Ivy's large grin sobered into a demure one. "You know Rinoa...you may not be able to understand this because you're not in a similar position, but... I think it's times like these where the whole weight of the world disappears, you know? People's opinions, school, buying tons of baby things, searching high and low for clothes that actually fit, rolling out of bed in the morning...it all just goes away with a simple kick."

"No, I can still imagine what you mean." she disagreed. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Ivy, there was a small lump threatening to form in the back of Rinoa's throat. "-The baby kicking is like its way of telling you he's in there, safe and sound. And maybe, just maybe, that innocent life letting you know that he's there helps make all of your worries and other troubles just go away."

"Hyne, you couldn't have said it any better. I have to admit that when the doctor told me that I was pregnant or during the times when I went for my ultrasounds, it was still so hard for me to imagine that there was an actual life growing in there because I hadn't had any signs from the baby itself. But when I felt that first kick, it was all I really needed to confirm it in my head."

Ivy fleetingly eyed her growing bump which, at this point, was big enough to show some definite rounding at the bottom of her baby blue, medium-sized long-sleeve shirt. "...I constantly wonder if everybody goes through same kind of mental process during all of this, but at the same time, I also wonder if I'm the only whose felt like this because of my size. I mean, my stomach hasn't grown as nowhere near as large as most women's do when they're expecting ...so maybe, my personal disbelief that something could exist in such a small space could have been the source of all this."

Before Rinoa could comment, she was distracted by the sound of footsteps behind her.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" a voice chimed behind them. Rinoa turned around and smirked. The interloper was Ryan with the cake on a platter in one hand and a tub of ice cream in the other.

"I'm surprised you haven't eaten that already Ryan." she jokingly commented, pointing at the cake. "Your sister told me you're a big fan of birthday cake."

Ryan rolled his eyes light-heartedly as he placed both the cake and tub in the middle of the table. "Trust me Rinoa, the only reason I would have by now is if I wasn't particularly fond of living."

"...And what pray tell makes you say that?" Rinoa asked wryly.

He took up a seat beside her and indulged her by listing off the reasons, ticking them off of his fingers for effect. "Number one, that cake isn't mine, so I can't use the, '_I'm the birthday boy and I'll do what I want to_' excuse. Number two, to set the record straight, my sisters are more avid fans of cake than I am. Three, taking cake away from a pregnant girl would surely lead to my untimely demise–" He quickly looked over at Ivy, "No offense-"

"-None taken." Ivy quickly responded.

"-Four, I did just that on my own birthday and ended up with a stomach ache of epic proportions. Not to mention, my New Year's resolution is to never eat a whole cake in one sitting ever again."

Justifiably so, both girls started snickering at this, much to the chagrin of a befuddled Ryan. Suddenly, the sound of additional footsteps echoed louder and louder as their owners came closer to the table.

"-What's with all the commotion you guys?" a voice, most likely Adrienne's, inquired.

Rinoa swivelled her upper body to see that Adrienne was indeed there, cutlery and plates in both hands, along with an equally-bemused birthday girl at her side.

Ryan shifted his body to face both of his sisters, in particular, his twin sister's. "Add...I think they're laughing at my New Year's resolution." he comically whined in a tone reminiscent of a lost puppy's...well, it would have, if lost puppies could _actually_ talk.

Adrienne went in between Rinoa and her brother's chairs to put plates in front of both of them. Meanwhile, Alexis took an empty seat on the far extremity and the two girls' small peals of laughter quietly died down.

"Well Ry," she started after she moved on to putting spoons beside their plates, "-I can't say that I blame them for laughing. I mean, they _did_ hear words come out of your mouth, didn't they?"

"Ha. Ha. Real mature Adrienne." he retorted sarcastically.

As the childish banter between Adrienne and Ryan continued, Rinoa couldn't help but exchange furtive smirks with Ivy as they silently watched the twins throw purposely-ridiculous insults back and forth between one another, even managing to catch Alexis with a shy hint of a grin on occasion from the other end of the table.

Rinoa let out a dreamy sigh. '.._.Oh, if only life could be this simple all the time._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Well, I had originally intended to put this out for Christmas Eve as an early present for you all, but...things kind of got in the way so I guess this ended being a normal Christmas present to everyone. Oh well, it's a bigger chapter so there's your compensation. Either way, be on the lookout before the new year comes, I might just be able to sneak in another chappy in before that big ol' crystal ball drops.

Merry Christmas everyone!

._..And if I don't update fast enough_...Happy New Year!

_-Emerald-Latias _


	20. Chapter XIX – Chain Effect

**Author's Notes **– Well, with the last update landing on Christmas day (yeah, chances are that most of you didn't catch that one. I didn't get too many reviews for it), I thought that I'd start of the year properly since I procrastinated far too much to make the New Year's Eve cut-off – I'm exactly two weeks off if you wanted to be precise about it.

But hopefully it'll still be worthy way to kick off 2008 in your minds too! Well... here goes nothing!

Oh, and if you guys are interested, I have simple blueprints of both Adrienne and Squall's houses in case if you're confused by my descriptions. The link's in my profile under the Reinventing Me section. Lemme know if it was any help to you guys.

Oops, I almost forgot (well, you guys would have noticed this anyways). I'm changing the dividers in the new chapters starting with this one. My old ones were ugly relics of the past so I wanted to update that so they look at least 72.93 percent prettier. Don't ask how dividers can be prettier or where I got that percentage number. Your brain will thank you. :)

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XIX – Chain Effect **

_-_

_So when will this end?  
It goes on and on,  
Over and over and over again,  
Keep spinning around,  
I know that it won't stop,  
Till I step down from this for good._

_**-Lifehouse, Sick Cycle Carousel.**_

-

After they'd all finished their cake and ice cream, Alexis had opened the gifts from her family, and they cleared the table, all of the girls decided to head towards Alexis's room. It didn't take long considering there since the house was entirely on one floor, meaning that there was no gruelling stair climbing of any kind; and since both guests knew the house's somewhat unusual layout like the back of their hands.

To put it simply, the house consisted of one square roundabout of a corridor past the initial entranceway, with a layout similar to a box-like 'P'. There, a conjoined kitchen, main dining room and laundry room occupied the inner-portion wedged between the surrounding corridors. The kitchen and laundry rooms had openings facing the entrance whereas the dining room had an opening in the other corridor. The dining room shared its left wall with the kitchen and its south wall with the laundry room, linking them all together. Meanwhile the outer lying portion of the corridors was mainly rooms and the odd bathroom here and there.

Coming from the room they'd been in, the path to get there would consist of a simple left turn, followed by a walk down the corridor, passing a bathroom and a room on the left-hand side along the way until the hallway curved to the right. Following the bend, Adrienne's room was the first on the left and Alexis's was the second in this small segment of corridor, before the next corner. Rinoa only knew this by the power of deduction; she was sure that she'd never actually been inside Alexis's room yet.

Right now, the four girls were only past the initial bathroom.

"So how was the after-school homework thing Rin?"

Rinoa looked at Adrienne who was leading the way, front and center. The raven-haired girl was on her right, Ivy on her left and Alexis trailing the pack with her gifts in tow.

"It was fine." she answered plainly. "It's not as big a deal as everyone seems to make of it."

Now they were rounding the bend. "I figured that much. I don't think any of them expected anything to go anywhere from the first blind date you had with Tyler."

Suddenly, Rinoa felt short of breath and her chest seize up. The possibility of going into a Squall-like coughing fit didn't seem farfetched right now – the innocently made comment had made for an inadvertent, yet powerful, sucker punch.

Gathering what little resolve and courage she did possess, Rinoa decided to bite the bullet, despite the fact that she fully-well knew that her words would most-likely come out no louder or more clearly than a wheeze.

"_Actually.._." Her voice faltered a little."...we're not together anymore."

".._.Oh._" All three girls chorused in a way that suggested a chorus of, '_Sorry, we didn't know._' wasn't going to be too far off.

Sensing this, Rinoa pre-emptively said, "No, no. It's...okay, really. I'm fine."

With a few longer-than-normal strides, she made herself be the first one to reach and open Alexis's door. Inside the modestly furnished room, Rinoa sat herself on a blue inflatable couch in the room's far left corner, a direct path forward from the room's door. Once she acquainted herself with the room's minute details from where she was sitting, like the bed in the furthest corner away from her, the desk and chair set on the door's right – her left, the dresser on her left – her breathing had suddenly become sparse again, maybe even bordering on asthmatic. It had happened **here**.

_**...When they'd walked into the dark room from the equally dark-hallway, her poor night vision got the best of her and she nearly tripped over a something solid, presumably an errant chair of some sort. Laughing slightly after hearing a small explosion of half-muffled curse words fly through the air, he flipped the light switch to see her with a pained grin on her face.**_

"_**...I hate chairs." she light-heartedly mumbled to him, pointing to the desk and chair set.**_

_**Another laugh escaped. "If it makes you feel any better, I could say that I don't like them either."**_

_**She giggled at this comment. "I'd thank you, but even I think it would sound ridiculous to say it for pretending to hate chairs for me." **_

_**He shrugged. "Fair enough." A thin smirk was now on his face. "-This a better place?"**_

_**In spite of the chair fiasco, Rinoa nodded her head. "Yes."**_

"_**Good." He leaned closer and flipped the switch back off.**_

Almost as if another sort of switch had flipped back on, Rinoa found herself back into the real world. When she mentally came to, the others were slowly walking inside the room and now she was trying her best to catch her breath inconspicuously. While Alexis was putting her gifts on her desk, both Ivy and Adrienne sat themselves on either side of Rinoa on the inflatable couch. Seconds later, Alexis dragged over the desk chair closer to where they all were.

Rinoa had been anticipating an awkward silence now, but Adrienne didn't give the possibility much of a chance.

"So Rinoa, did you have trouble teaching him about haikus?" she asked jokingly.

The teenager had a small laugh. "Actually, to be honest, I didn't. I had extra writing exercises planned in case if he was bad with certain things or in case if he didn't get any of the explanation and I didn't have to use any of them. I was sort of surprised that he caught on so quickly."

Ivy cracked a smile. "That's surprising. I tried helping Paul with them today and nothing would click in his head no matter what I did. Then again..." There was a small pause. The corners of her mouth tugged upwards. "-I'm not sure that boys and poetry are supposed to mix."

Alexis quietly added her own two cents. "..Is it possible that he, um, had a natural affinity for it for no reason?"

Rinoa shook her head. "No. He only caught onto the form quickly; I still had to help him in the creativity department. You should have seen what we came up with though, it was pretty good."

"Oh."

A few seconds later, Adrienne's face split in a devilish smirk. "Was it something like, _**'Stop talking to me - I don't want to see you here - Please go away now'**_?"

'_Wow...I can't believe she just made that up on the spot._' Then, an after thought occurred. '-_Wait a minute...that's not nice!_'

"...Hey, that's not very nice Adrienne." Rinoa chided light-heartedly.

"Okay, I'll cut it out." she conceded. "Hey Rin, just out of curiosity, do you have the homework for the next couple of days?"

Rinoa nodded. "Yeah, I do."

"So would you know what Kolp's going to throw at us next? I doubt she'll be sticking with haikus until the time we have to present in class. That'd be overkill...even for her."

"Not off the top of my head, no. Even then, I wouldn't have the pages on me other than the ones for tomorrow. Squall's mom has the rest of them. I just get the pages I need for the next time before leaving their house."

Since they were all sitting within a close proximity to her, it didn't take long for Rinoa to catch everyone's mildly perplexed looks.

'_Yay. Looks like I'm going to need to clarify here before __**everybody **__joins the 'Rinoa, does this mean what I think it means?' parade._' she thought morosely. '_At least they're not tossing theories in my face. Hyne, what is it about this guy that gets everyone's attention?_'

"Yeah, I know it sounds weird." she admitted. Here came the glossed-over near-truth. "But his mom offered to keep the papers I didn't need right away to make it easier for me. Plus I think she wanted to do it that way so that if it looked like I was getting them day by day, Squall would have to pace himself...or something."

Suddenly, all of their confused expressions faded except for one – Ivy's.

"Rinoa?"

"Hm?"

"After you said that, it got me to thinking. Did you tell the others that you were only bringing his homework and explaining it or did you only tell them that you were bringing it over?"

The memory of the latter part of yesterday's encounter trickled into her brain. _**...So in the end, I kind of got roped into being the lucky student who's going to bring his homework to his house.**_

"No...I only told them I was bringing it over." she realized. "But I don't think it'd make a difference whether I told them that or not. They must have started saying those things only because I went to look for the homework all of a sudden. And even if I-"

She hesitated.

'_It's natural to feel this way. Go ahead and say you're unhappy about it. It can't possibly raise suspicion. This plan to change is as much following his advice as it is to act like your true self._'

Rinoa continued what she didn't seconds prior. "-And even if I don't like the fact that they did that... I can sort of understand why."

Ivy looked at her warily. "Nobody told you what they actually said, did they?"

The teenager gave her an equally wary stare back at her and then another to Adrienne. "Was it worse than a '_me being his secret girlfriend_' theory?"

Ivy looked at Adrienne, which prompted her to answer Rinoa. "...Yeah, most of the things they said were worse." she confessed rather reluctantly.

"-How much worse?"

"Eden must have seen you talking to him a lot before you guys left because that's the catalyst behind the worst ideas they had; that and Squall's mom coming inside the class." Adrienne explained. "The secret girlfriend theory would have been mild compared to what they thought of."

Rinoa frowned. "What? Did they think I screwed around with him during the holidays because I talked to him before and acted kinda odd?"

Adrienne uncharacteristically bit her lip. When she wouldn't say anything, Ivy stepped in.

"They didn't say it explicitly but... that was more or less the idea floating around. I kept on hearing them say that nobody heard anything about your blind date between themselves; so I assume didn't help either."

"_Hyne.._." Rinoa rubbed her eyes methodically with her thumb and forefinger. Her resolve was fading faster than a popsicle could melt under an unforgiving July sun.

'_God...ignorance made this so much easier to tolerate and sweep under the rug. I...I don't think I can anymore...I didn't think they'd said anything that extreme when Ryan and Ivy had told me the news. I know that they're nice people in general, but if they do this to a friend, I can't imagine it'd make much difference if I weren't one. I don't need this constant moral struggle in my head anymore._'

Un-burying her face out of her hands, Rinoa managed a faint mumble. "._..Adrienne?_"

When the other brunette made eye contact with her again, it was evident from her expression that she already knew what was coming next.

The following words Rinoa spoke were short, sweet and strained. "._..I don't think I can be friends with the others anymore._"

'_There. It's official. I can't go back. ...So much for what I wrote in my journal today. I hope Squall won't shoot me because I didn't follow his advice. Hearing this...it hurt far too much than I ever expected to simply dismiss it. I am not a slut. I don't need friends who think I am or could be._'

'_...I guess I never thought that I'd be labelled as something from the very people who created the label in the first place._'

Although she might have anticipated the words, the corners of Adrienne's mouth dipped into a subtle frown, betraying her predominantly blank expression. The realization that she was going to be the only one stuck in the middle now must have hit hard.

The room stayed silent for a long, awkward moment.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Wednesday, January 5__th__ –_

_To say that it was awkward at school today was a bit of an understatement. It would be like saying that the library has a couple of books lying around or that Squall had a bit of a cough yesterday. Not going to cover it one bit. I'm sure that by this time, the others must have heard about what I said from Adrienne. I just hope that they won't come back and try to patch things up. I know that it sounds mean but...I don't want to be dragged around like this anymore. Sure, we've had plenty of good times as a group but the constant gossiping and their unfair treatment towards Ivy easily outweighed the good. I don't want to turn into that and I don't want people to perceive me as that either._

_Maybe hearing what the mean comments actually were was the shove I needed to get out of this. On the other hand, maybe me leaving will be the shove they need to realize how their actions affect people. I wonder if the stereotype people have about me will eventually disappear if I'm not with them now. Knowing my luck, it'll probably magnify it and the next thing I know, they'll label me as the resident sorceress of Balamb Garden. _

_I really hope that's not the case though. I'd have to start pestering Squall for coping strategies day and night. Hyne I wish I was better at holding my emotions back and not taking things to heart so easily – I wish I had Squall's resilience. I guess I was wrong yesterday; I still wear my heart on my sleeve an awful lot. Wait, now that I think of it, Squall mangled the expression a little. Wearing your heart on your sleeve doesn't have to do with letting the things people say upset you, that's just taking it to heart- Ah, I should forget about it. I got the idea either way. _

_Speaking of Squall, I don't know what I'm going to do when I'm over there today. Kolp didn't follow what was on the page at all. I'm going to have to fly solo on this one. There's not enough time to whip up a proper lesson like yesterday's if I want to show up before suppertime. And even if I did have time, I still don't think I'd be able to do much anyway since I'm pretty sure Kolp was phoning it in for today's lesson. Hm. Maybe I could try something if his laptop has a working internet connection. Or something else if he's able to talk without straining his voice today._

_Well, I'd better stop writing for now. Have to channel my inner-actress before I attempt to walk over to the Loire (Leonhart?) household. That reminds me...I'm going to have to ask somebody the two different last names. Now it's really bugging me. _

_...Way to go brain._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_**Knock! Knock!**_

The door swung open and Raine silently ushered her inside the small house. A few moments later after she'd de-booted and de-coated herself, the formal pleasantries began.

"How's he doing today?"

"Much better." Raine hooked the coat on the nearby coat rack. "He must have taken your ultimatum seriously because I haven't had an ounce of trouble from him."

Rinoa smirked. "So I take you didn't have to tie him to his bed?" she joshed.

"No. He actually rested."

"That's good." The teenager readjusted the strap on her bag. "Well, I'd better head downstairs."

After she nodded, Rinoa walked down the narrow hallway and went down the stairs. Approaching the area around his door, she instinctively checked to see if there was anyone in the bathroom first by putting an ear to the door. She sighed in relief when there weren't any signs - looks like she wasn't going to get spooked today.

"...What are you doing?"

"_**Aah!**_" She practically jumped ten feet when she heard his voice behind her. "Don't...don't _**do**_ that any more Squall! I'm going to have a heart attack!" Whatever composure she had prior to the incident wasn't going to come back anytime soon. "Where did you come from anyway? I didn't hear your door creak."

"Laundry room." he answered coolly. "...Why are you all red?"

"Because you scared me." she replied with an equally cool tone. "My face always goes red when I get scared like that."

'_Gee Squall; hasn't it ever occurred to you that maybe it's because you don't have a shirt on and I was sorta, maybe, kinda expecting you to wear one?_'

"Whatever." He strode towards his bedroom door and twisted the knob. He looked back with a perplexed stare. "...Aren't you coming?"

Rinoa blinked. "Sorry, I kinda spaced out. I had a really tough day at school so I'm a little tired." she mumbled before following him. "...I noticed you got your voice back."

"...And I'm sure the irony's killing you right now." he quipped rather dully.

"I was just saying something I noticed." she explained pointedly. Then her eyes drifted a little. "-I didn't mean it in another way."

"My face is right here Rinoa." he said, pointing to his face for effect. "You're talking to a wall."

'_Well if you were in my position you'd want to talk to walls too Squall. Hyne, this is so very awkward. If Adrienne ever caught wind of this, she'd laugh at me and say something like, 'See? I told you that Gym makes everyone have washboard abs.''_

'_Oh no. I didn't just go there, did I?_'

'_Yeah, you just did Rinoa.' _

'_...Great._'

"Sorry." She paused to rub her eyes consciously. "Being tired makes me do stupid things. I'll be fine though."

It seemed like Squall cared very little about her excuse as he turned to twist the doorknob and enter the room. Rinoa was thankful when she finally noticed that he had something that looked like a bunched up white shirt of some kind in his left hand, even more so when he casually put it on.

'..._Guess he was in the laundry room for a reason._' she mused while she followed him into the room.

Once she was near the table, Rinoa stopped and started digging through her bag. Pulling all of the papers out, she plopped them down on the aforementioned piece of furniture and walked over to join Squall by sitting on the chair beside him at the desk, noticeably empty-handed. He gave her a weird look.

"...Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Nope." she answered candidly. "Kolp taught something different than what was on the papers and I'm assuming you're okay for your History stuff."

The weird look turned into a confused one. "She gave you the wrong pages today? Shouldn't you have checked them to before you left?"

"Uh- er, no, it's wasn't like that. Kolp was the only instructor who gave me a couple days worth of work in advance. I guess she didn't think of you when she decided to switch it up."

Her little white lie must have been convincing enough because, well, he look somewhat pissed. "Well that's _just_ wonderful." he griped acerbically.

"Yeah, I read the pages beforehand to prepare a kind of lesson for you and I wasn't too happy when she did that either."

He looked at her. "...So you have nothing right now?"

She shook her head. "No, I do. Does your laptop have an internet connection?"

"Yeah..." he said uncertainly, "-why?"

"We're going to look up lyrics."

Still looking at her, Squall lifted the laptop's screen precariously. "What does that have to do with poetry?"

"I'm...not entirely sure of that myself. In class, she mumbled something that poetry didn't have to have complicated rules, rhyme schemes and stuff. Then she went on about how poetry could be in whatever form just as long as there was some kind of meaning or image attached to it so...I guess she's using song lyrics as an example of this."

"...Sounds like a last-ditch effort to get people interested in poetry if you ask me."

"Hyne...you just stole the words right out of my mouth. Anyways, we're supposed to find some lyrics from part of a song you find that has some meaning, image or whatever and write a little about why you chose it. However, if you can't find a song, she gave the option of writing part of a song along with an explanation behind it. It's a graded mini assignment so you have to finish yours before I leave since it's due tomorrow."

After hearing this, he pinched the bridge of his nose and grumbled. Rinoa was surprised that the words that came out of his mouth next had nothing to do with Instructor Kolp being an unfair old bat or something like that. Then again, she thought, a similar thought could have been the source of his annoyed grumbling.

"How long does the part of the song and this response have to be?"

"She said that you need to at least have a stanza for the song and three-quarters of a page, single-spaced for the response."

"Hm." After a few quick keystrokes, an abstract charcoal-grey desktop background came into the view. He moved his hands to either side of the laptop. "...What kind of song did you pick?"

"I thought you were going to going to say that, so I kept the scrap of paper I wrote my lyrics on." She dug into her jeans' pocket and handed him the creased piece of paper.

_Rain, rain, go away,  
Come again another day,  
All the world is waiting for the sun._

He finished eying the scribbled-on scrap a few moments later and looked up at her.

"...So she wants something metaphorical?"

Rinoa shrugged. "She didn't say much, she just said that it had to have some meaning or image but...to be on the safe side, I would try to stick with something like that. I don't think she'd want a song where the lyrics have to do with riding around in fast cars and picking up girls."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, because those kinds of songs would have been my first choice." he commented sardonically.

"Squall, that was joke." Rinoa pointed out. "Besides, I know that-" She stopped in mid-sentence. "-Err, scratch that. I don't even know what kind of music you like."

"...I don't care for music."

"Oh...really?"

He didn't bother to pursue this particular line of conversation. "...Do you have any suggestions for finding something?"

"Um..." Rinoa looked around the room absentmindedly for inspiration. If he had no favourite bands, let alone any musical preference whatsoever, there would be no way of narrowing down the search. "I don't know Squall. Since you don't have any specific kind of music you listen or at least relate to, I can't think of any way of finding something other than to randomly type stuff in a lyric site's search engine."

He shrugged. In a matter of a few taps on the keyboard and clicks on the mouse, Squall's screen was displaying a lyrics site. He didn't go any further than clicking on the site search engine's textbox though. Fingers poised carefully over the keyboard, he seemingly waited for her to say something.

Rinoa bit the corner of her lip. She had nothing in mind for this. "Okay...let's see...um, type in your, uh, I don't know... your favourite...um, colour and see what you get."

He typed in the word 'black' in the textbox, clicked on the option 'songs' over 'artists' and pressed the enter key. A new page generated in a matter of a split-second and it neatly listed the songs with the word 'black' in their title with their respective bands directly underneath each title. While Squall chose songs randomly and looked them over at lightning-speed, Rinoa sat there idly.

_The black rain is falling,  
Contaminating the ground,  
The human race is dying,  
The dead are scattered around,  
What is the price of a bullet?  
Another hole in the head,  
A flag draped over a coffin,  
Another soldier is dead—_

Click. Click.

_When I was a young boy,  
My father took me into the city,  
To see a marching band—_

Click. Click.

_I see a red door and I want it painted black,  
No colors anymore I want them to turn black,  
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes,  
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes—_

Click. Click.

_In my eyes, indisposed,  
In disguises no one knows,  
Hides the face, lies the snake,  
In the sun in my disgrace,  
Boiling heat, summer stench,  
'Neath the black the sky looks dead,  
Call my name through the cream,  
And I'll hear you scream again—_

Click. Click.

_One more day down,  
Everybody has those days,  
Where one soft sweet song's,  
Just enough to clear my head—_

Click. Click.

_Baby's black balloon makes her fly,  
I almost fell into that hole in your life,  
And you're not thinking about tomorrow,  
'Cause you were the same as me,  
But on your knees—_

"...This isn't working." he stated, still looking at the screen.

Rinoa pointed at a certain part of the screen. "Try clicking on some of bands' names to bring you to a list of their other songs. Who knows? Maybe you'll find something that looks interesting or something that'll remind you of a song you do know. But if that doesn't get you anywhere, it's no big deal if I have to help you write a song."

Seeing as he hadn't backtracked to the list screen as he'd usually done prior to this, Squall simply clicked on the name of the artist from the last song he'd picked arbitrarily. As he casually scrolled downward, looking utterly bored in Rinoa's opinion, one title inadvertently caught her attention.

Faster than she could say 'coincidence', he closed the page and laptop for that matter.

"...I give up. This isn't going to work unless if you're planning to spend the night while I-" Cough. "-look through all of this." he sourly intoned. Another cough sputtered out. "_-An_d no, that wasn't an invitation. It'd probably take me that long if I continued – which I won't."

In spite of herself, Rinoa had to smirk a little. "I already knew it was only a figure of speech when you said that, not an actual invitation. I know that you're not that kind of person and neither am I..._despite what people may think._"

In reaction to the new quizzical expression on his face, she furrowed her eyebrows him in response. "_-What?_"

"Something happened...you sounded bitter when you trailed off." he logically deduced with a bit of accusation in his tone.

'_Crap. Why did I do that? I should have known better, now I'll have to explain and he'll be even more annoyed with me. The silent types always catch on to these kinds of things.'_

"-You promise not to get mad at me?"

His quizzical look remained.

Rinoa sighed. "I didn't follow what you said about not letting people's comments get to me...I-" She paused. Admitting this seemed harder and harder to do in her opinion. But in the end, she decided to get it over with. "I got very upset over something and did something drastic."

"I don't particularly care what it is unless if you went telling everyone about your plan or if you dragged me into something." he enlightened. "You can disregard any piece of advice I give you but if things get tough because if you don't follow it, I don't want to hear about it. That's-" Cough. "-your problem."

Involuntarily, she flinched from his brutal response. "...Okay, but it's not as simple as that. They dragged you into this without me doing anything."

He arched his eyebrows. Rinoa sighed again. This wasn't going to be pretty, especially when she knew she'd have to explain this in large detail.

"After I came back from the infirmary on Monday, I was sitting around in class when one of my friends asked for help with her group assignment where two of my other friends are with her. After they started talking to me after I answered their question, I accidentally said something that led them to finding out about me bringing your homework, and well, they must have unintentionally thought that it was the worst thing that happened to me by the way I must have said it. I felt so bad because I couldn't say anything to stop them from saying those mean things because I was afraid they might have suspected something."

She paused to catch her breath. He remained silent. Whether his silence was a good or bad thing, it was purely up to interpretation. Rinoa believed it to be a sign that he was listening patiently. Then again, her powers of assumption didn't mean much here. He wasn't an open book by any stretch of the imagination.

"Anyways, at that point...I kind of felt so bad that I left the room without any warning other than mumbling that I was going to try to collect some homework for you. It was a lie, but I wanted an excuse to get away from there and that's why you saw me in the infirmary Monday. I figured I could spend my time better by forewarning you about the homework thing."

She drew another breath. "Anyways, to make a long story a little less long, when I finally went back to class, two people told me that my friends in the group started to talk about why they thought I left so suddenly and yesterday, I finally found out what they actually said. Before I let it slide because I never knew what they'd actually said just to play it safe, but after I found out...I decided to part ways with them for good. It...hurt too much to ignore it like you advised me to do."

"...So I assume whatever they said had to do with me?" Squall calmly inquired.

Rinoa quietly nodded. "...Yeah. One of them must have seen me argue with you to go to the infirmary and probably thought it was something else. Not to mention the fact that I acted a little weird when I left fed their ..._gossipy_ sides so you can probably imagine the sort of thing they thought up."

He coughed a little. "...What, that they think we were together because of what you did?"

She gave him an awkward grimace. "That's what I thought before I was told but no. Think more on the, um,_ physical _side."

It took a mere half-minute before he figured out the puzzle behind her words. He coughed again. ".._.You're kidding me._"

Rinoa's face went pink. "Unfortunately I'm not... We're in hot water any way you look at it now." She lowered her head. "...I'm so sorry Squall, I just couldn't ignore that. I'm not made of stone; it hurt too much to know they thought of me that way and I don't want to risk turning into or being seen as someone like them anymore." She lowered her head even further and wedged her hands between her knees. "_I realize that I'm probably giving you more trouble than you deserve right now. And I'm really, really sorry._"

"...At least you realize that." he added dully.

She looked up at him, confused. "...Why aren't you yelling at me?"

Squall rolled his eyes. "Do I sound like I have the ability to yell-" Cough. "-right now?"

"Now that I think of it...not really." she answered thoughtfully. "Okay, so why didn't you chew me out at normal volume then?"

"Because there's no use." he replied succinctly. "I'm stuck with you whether I like it or not."

Rinoa blinked. "What do you mean?"

He sighed. "Do you think I have the option of luxury of picking who I want to help me with Lit?"

She bit her lip. Was this a trick question? Rinoa shook the non-sense out of her head. When was Squall ever anything other than straightforward or blunt? The guy probably lived life in black in white for all she knew.

"Um...no?"

"Exactly. I have no choice." he affirmed. "And because I have no choice and the deal was to help you with this in exchange for helping me out...I have no option but to do that."

"_Err_..._thank you?_"

He got up from his chair and walked over to the table. Rinoa craned her neck to see that he was grabbing a sheaf of pages and a set of pencils. He went back to his seat, moved the laptop aside and put the pages and pencils in front of them.

"-Are we working on the song now?" she inquired.

He shrugged."...It's not as if I have a choice. We don't do limericks until tomorrow."

Rinoa's jaw dropped. "...You knew about the pages being here? But you said that thing about-"

"I did what I had to do to make you think otherwise, just like you had to lie about getting them in advance." he said composedly.

"...So did you know all along, or just after today?"

"I knew all along but I didn't know where the pages were hidden until you left yesterday."

"Wait," She stopped for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. "So does that mean you didn't know about the haiku stuff if I already had the pages?"

"Yes."

"So...am I actually helping you?"

"You already know the answer to that one. Don't make me spell it out for you."

"Sorry," she mumbled, "-sometimes you need someone to say it aloud for it to really sink in, you know?"

"Well you shouldn't need someone to tell you something before you realize it." he stated dryly while he wrote a potential line for his song snippet. "Look at what that kind of approach cost you so far."

It didn't take long for her to catch on. "Yeah, you're right. ...Those girls wouldn't have come to the conclusion that we were secret lovers if I had been smarter about this."

He must have pressed on the pencil he'd been using with a little more force than usual because Rinoa heard a loud snap. "...Never say that again. **Ever.**"

Under the weight of his intense glare, she hastily vowed never to say the words ever again. In spite of this, Rinoa inwardly had to smirk about this. His reaction was far more comical than she would have ever expected.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments - **Well, I hope this'll make up for all of the lost time. Cookies to anyone who can either list all of the band names or the song titles in Squall's search engine episode in their review. As for the entire potential coincidence thing, you guys will have to figure that one on your own. All it takes is a modest effort. :)

Oh, and yes I know that I shouldn't be using real-life songs for something in a VIII world but I figure since I didn't name names, I'm almost off the hook. I stand by the a hundred monkeys could eventually write Shakespeare theory.

Hehe. Have a good one in any case,

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbit -** If you notice, this is the first chapter where Squall addresses Rinoa by name.


	21. Chapter XX – Hot and Cold

**Author's Notes** – Holy cow, twenty chapters already (not including the prologue)! Where has the time gone? It's going to be a year since I've started this on the 25th of February too. Yeesh! Next thing I know, I'll be at Chapter 30 and I'll be laughing immaturely just because the title format will start with, **Chapter XXX**.

Disturbing thoughts, _no?_

Well, hopefully this chapter will be disturbing enough in the interim. Enjoy!

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XX – Hot and Cold**

_-_

_She looks like the real thing,  
She tastes like the real thing,  
My fake plastic love,  
But I can't help the feeling,  
I could blow through the ceiling,  
If I just turn and run._

_**-Radiohead, Fake Plastic Trees.**_

-

"So you're going to use this for your song and explanation?"

Without a word, he slid the page in her direction.

"Okay, so that's done." she concluded as she took the page into her hands. "I think you'll do great on this."

Squall tossed her a tired look. "...What did I say about coddling?"

"Hey," she replied defensively, "-that wasn't coddling, I honestly believe that. Coddling would be me saying a thousand million reasons why I love it. I think you're going to have to learn how to take a compliment sometime."

He rolled his eyes.

Now Rinoa rolled her eyes back at him. "And somehow I just _knew _you were going to do that."

He tossed her a look which suggested he couldn't care less.

"Okay… So do you think your voice is up to snuff to practice your public speaking skills?"

"Not really...it'll probably give out soon if I'm not careful."

"Hm. Well, I'll try to get some groundwork done so I can make some detailed exercises later on. So what gives you the most trouble when have to do some kind of presentation? -Nerves, organization, something else?"

"I'm not the source of the problem, it's the teacher." he grumbled defensively.

"So...you don't have any problems with any of the things I mentioned?"

"No." A moment passed before he finally explained himself. "Everything we have to present is stupid and it reflects on whatever I say because I'm uninterested. You've seen me up there, you should know."

"You never sound very enthused or very audible." she remarked from memory. "You don't look at your audience either."

"Exactly."

"I think I have an idea that might help you here. It's a little unconventional, but it might just work."

"...What is it?"

"Well..." she started shyly, "-it's along the same lines as the buttered toast thing but not as bad. I think if you were to say something very ridiculous to my face, it might make the regular presentations a little easier. I know that it won't help your interest level for whatever it is you have to present, but it knowing that you've already read something worse by comparison might make it easier to go up there."

Fearing that he'd take it similarly to the buttered toast thing, despite the lack of comical tone in her voice, Rinoa pre-emptively added, "-But you don't have to do it if you don't want to though. It's just an idea."

"...I'll pass."

"That's fine. Did you want to practice keeping eye contact with your audience?"

"-By doing what? Having a staring contest?" he responded cynically.

"No. You pick something with a couple of lines it and you have to keep eye contact with me while you read it. If you stand over by your table and I turn my chair to face you, it'll be close to the distance you'd have from the desks if you were presenting in class."

He got up from his chair, picked up a random scribbled-on sheet of paper off the desk and walked over to the table. Rinoa moved her chair and sat there attentively, waiting for him to start. Strangely enough, from the very instant he went up to the table, Rinoa noticed that there was a subtle energetic quality to his stance, like he couldn't stay in one position as he was peering down at the page in his hand. In all honesty, it looked like he was suffering from a caffeine overdose or something-

'_Oh. My. God. Is he getting anxious about speaking and I'm the only one here? –I think I'll have to bring it up if it turns out that this isn't a figment of my imagination._'

"Squall, you shouldn't lean against the table when you're presenting. Good posture gives a better impression on people and the teacher for that matter. They'll be more likely to listen to what you say."

Squall stood unnaturally ruler-straight. The fidgeting seemed to lessen. "...For someone who's simulating an audience, you're paying too much attention to detail."

Rinoa stifled a small laugh. "Okay, consider me some kind of teacher then. I don't think we can bring in Seifer to represent the students."

'_Not to mention that'd be __**extremely**__ awkward. He'd probably laugh his head off about what the others thought about Squall and me. The flashing thing was bad enough-_'

'_Wait, why does everyone assume that I'm either flashing or doing him just because I can manage to talk with him? God, if this was the case with every guy I've talked to I'd be a-_'

'-_No Rinoa, don't go there. People are ignorant, what they think is their problem._'

When she finally stopped having mental battles with herself, Rinoa noticed that he was locking eyes with her. It was a good sign, right?

"...I accidentally picked up a drawing of yours, could you give me another page?"

…Maybe not as good as she hoped.

Her hand was about to single out a page from the top of the heap when an idea struck her. "Squall, instead of giving you another page, try describing the picture to me."

He blinked. "-Why?"

"Because if describing pictures isn't something you're used to, it can sort of apply to how you'd feel if you have to recite a poem. It might help you get used to the awkwardness or stupidity, whichever way you choose to look at it."

"...Fine." After glancing over the page for a brief moment, he looked back up at her and started listing off the doodles one-by-one rather dully. "You drew a couple of random angel wings, smiley faces and the odd drawing of a...cactus."

When she remembered the page in question, all of her plans to ask him to elaborate further went out the window, opting to blurt out a, "Darn, I was going for a Cactuar."

He furrowed his eyebrows. "...Last time I checked, Cactuars had eyes, a mouth and a...bottom half."

"Yeah, but my Cactuar was supposed to be stuck in the ground."

"Cactuars are very agile; I doubt they'd be stuck in the ground. They'd be more likely to speed off somewhere."

"It's only a drawing Sq-" She stopped in mid-sentence when it dawned her. It took all the will-power she had not to burst out laughing. "-Oh Hyne, we're arguing over Cactuars."

"_Great_, that'll help improve my ridiculous quotient." he commented sarcastically. Discarding the paper, he leaned against the table once more and crossed his arms casually. "Now I'll be able to do presentations with ease. Thanks."

"I didn't _mean_ for this to happen. It just..._happened._"

"...I know that." he pointed out. "No one argues about Cactuars voluntarily."

"Yeah, just like the buttered toast thing. But you still managed to write something very-" In mid-sentence, Rinoa was hit with an epiphany. "Actually…come to think of it, I noticed something when we were arguing."

Understandably so, he shifted a little and eyed her with a rare curiosity running rampant within the confines of his steel-blue eyes.

"Although you did keep eye contact all the way through, which is good, when you were talking about the drawings, you sounded exactly like you would in class. _But_ when you were arguing your point about the Cactuars, you didn't sound as nervous and bored. In fact, you were kind of interesting to hear because you attacked it with such ...unwavering logic."

"-I _wasn't_ nervous." he countered fiercely.

"…_Right_, and Siren isn't scantily clothed. I could see it from a mile away. You were nervous; I could see it in your posture."

"So bad posture automatically equals nervousness? I fail to see the link there."

"That was just an example, Squall." she said firmly. "There were a lot more little things to suggest you were." Suddenly, her voice became a little more heated when he continued to disregard the words coming out of her mouth. "_In fact_, I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't put any effort into your presentations and sacrificed your oral evaluation grade just to get them over with so you wouldn't be up there anymore."

When all he could do was glare at her in response, Rinoa knew that she'd hit a nerve.

"So you're…actually nervous?"

He stood there stoically for the longest time before any words passed through his lips. "I'm not nervous……just uncomfortable."

Rinoa sighed. "Squall…how can I help you when you don't even tell me where you have trouble? It not like I have sorceress powers to read your mind or anything."

Getting out of her seat, she walked over to him and calmly continued, facing him eye to eye. "There's got to be some give and take here. Don't be afraid to tell me things just because you think I'll tell anyone or make fun of you because I won't. I always tell you what you need to know for my problem, no matter how embarrassing it is, I think it'd be nice if you did the same."

Under the weight of her gaze, Squall turned away in a bid to avoid furthering the talk. Rinoa slid sideways to bar the possibility of complete escape. Being a head shorter than he, she tilted her head upwards as she stood her ground, arms crossed.

"Why are you avoiding my request?" she boldly inquired. "Is it that hard to trust me?"

"We've only had this agreement for a few days and you're asking for complete trust already?" he questioned, narrowing his eyes. "Isn't that going a little far?"

"An agreement's nothing without trust. I'm not asking for some kind of heavy-duty commitment here, only a simple courtesy. Besides, I was under the impression you were going to try to trust me after what you said in class Monday."

"You're holding me to something I didn't even say when I was in that kind of condition? That's smart." he scoffed.

"You might not have said it but I'm pretty sure that what you did say implied that you were going to try."

"Then you inferred wrong." he coldly corrected. "I said that so you'd stop pestering me."

Rinoa felt her chest seize up. If she wasn't careful, this was going to end up being a starting contest after all. "…Why do you have to be so…hot and cold with me all the time?"

"…What the hell do you mean?"

Now Rinoa was mad – how could he not see it? Was he _that_ self-absorbed? "One minute you're civil, the next you're uncooperative and rude like when I first met you. Why can't you stay consistent? I know I'm no princess, but it's hard working with someone so…so volatile!"

"It's called introversion. I'm not a people person and I never will be. Get used to it." he snapped.

"Fine, I will. But you've got to start trusting me to make up for that." she countered. "Agreements are a two-way street. If one person decides they want to block the whole road then it's not very fair. I'm not asking for much, just the bare minimum I need to do my job. And just to remind you, if I can't do my job, chances are that you won't pass Lit. You're just going to have to put your pride on the shelf for the moment so we can work through this and turn your grade around for the last couple of weeks."

After a lot of mental deliberation must have gone through his head, he looked at her warily.

"Don't worry _so_ much Squall." she implored. "Trust me, I won't let you down. After all, it's like you said, we're stuck in this together, right?" Trying to further her point, Rinoa fished around her mind to reel in a good illustration of what she meant. "Um... You could even say '_Tell anyone that and you're dead'_ after anything you tell me and metaphorically speaking, I would still be living."

"…Your metaphors need work." he noted dryly.

The frown on Rinoa's face finally eased into a faint smile and her arms uncrossed themselves. "I know, that was pretty bad. But I figured if Seifer can use it against me when you were unconscious, you'd get the idea too."

He turned away to cough. "_Don't…_remind me about that."

"Okay."

Rinoa walked back over to the desk as it wasn't necessary to speak with Squall in close proximity anymore. As she was gathering the pages he'd just completed for his assignment not too long ago, along with a couple of others, she swivelled her head to her left. He was leaning against the table with his arms crossed.

"So...you said you've read the thing about limericks, right?"

"...Yes."

"So I take it you know what the format is?"

Uncrossing his arms, he placed his left palm near the edge of the table while his other hand's thumb and forefinger were used to rub his eyelids. "Something about having five lines with AABBA rhyme scheme and ...something else. I don't-Cough_."-remember._"

At this point, Rinoa had everything in her arms and wasn't tilting sideways to talk to him anymore. "Conveniently trying to forget the fact that they're supposed to be funny?"

He stopped rubbing his eyes. "...If you come back tomorrow and tell me that she changed her mind and decided to have us present limericks instead, I'm going to-" Yet another slew of coughs came out. "-_skip town._"

"So you'd rather present that haiku?"

"_It's the lesser of two evils. I have no sense of humour._"

Rinoa tried her best to withhold an emerging smirk. That failed big time. '_Well duh._'

Recovering from her thoughts, she managed to say something without injecting chuckles here and there. "You know, you should be thankful she's simplifying the guidelines for the limericks. When they're the way they're originally supposed to be, there's a certain length for each line and it's supposed to be funny in an obscene way, not just funny."

"She should have kept the obscene format." he commented. "More people would have been interested for that aspect alone."

"-Have any one in mind when you said that?"

He put his other palm on the desk. "Most of the male population of the class."

Her smirk grew larger. "I guess you do have bit of a sense of humour after all."

Squall finally stopped leaning against the table altogether, looking..._startled?_ "...Tell anyone that and you're dead."

"Don't worry," she said with a chuckle, "-I won't. I respect your wish to continue being thought of without a humorous bone in your body."

"...Your phrasing needs work too." he mildly quipped. "There's a humerus bone in the arm and I'm certain that I'd need that."

"I didn't know that. I hear people talk about funny bones all the time but I always thought it was simply a figure of speech."

"-That's referring to the nerve on the end of it, not the bone itself."

"...Aah, it's nearly the same thing." she said tiredly. "I didn't know you knew so much about human anatomy though. Did you take some kind of special class in Garden or did you find it out on your own?"

He coughed in response. Or so that was assumed until actual words came out of his mouth. "—_What's it to you?_"

"Oh nothing, just curious." She walked back over to him. "Well, I think it would be best if we wrapped it up here. I don't want to go ahead with the limericks yet in case Kolp doesn't follow the plan again."

With a curt nod, he acknowledged her leaving and before Rinoa knew it, she'd already turned the knob and opened the door. Against her better judgement, instead of going straight through, she stopped and turned towards the room again. One last thing was on her mind and Squall was in the middle of gathering up the History pages.

"Hey...Squall?"

There might have been a delay of about ten seconds before he turned his head in her direction. "...What?"

"I forgot to ask earlier but... how come you pointed out that something must have happened because I sounded bitter when I trailed off a while ago?"

He set down the pages. "..Whether you realize it or not, you said that with the intention of being caught."

Rinoa was perplexed. "-What do you mean?"

"You said it on purpose to make it easier to admit those things." he dully noted, his whole body now facing her. "...Explaining is always easier if you create a situation where you have no choice but to do it."

'_Wow. I never thought of it that way. Nothing really gets past him, does it? Still...'_

"That makes sense, but if you knew that, then why did you still go ahead and ask about it?"

"...It wasn't a question of caring, if that's what you're wondering. I did it because there was a high chance that the explanation was going to complicate my life somehow. And I was right."

"So you just wanted the heads-up in case if it was bad news?"

He replied with a simple nod.

'_I feel better now. This makes more sense than him caring._'

"Okay, thanks." She was about to leave when his voice stopped her dead in her tracks.

"_...Do you know how you're going to deal with this?_"

She turned around once more. "You mean the whole, _'you doing me'_ rumour thing, right?"

"_No_...I'm referring to pink fuzzy rabbits." he drawled sarcastically. "Of course, I'm referring to that."

"...I honestly don't know. I could avoid you like the plague, but then they might get the idea that I'm covering something up, which isn't the case, or if we pretended that we were something to prove I don't care what they think, I'd be playing with fire-"

Squall cut her off. "-I get it, we're screwed either way. Close the door." When she gave him a weird look, he groaned. "Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm only asking you this to make sure we don't have any extra listeners."

"Sorry." She closed the door and took a few steps away from it. "So do you have any suggestions?"

Squall covered a pair of small coughs with his hand. ".._.It depends on what you'll have to contend with."_

"I wouldn't know for sure Squall. All I know is that the idea of me bringing you your homework always gets some kind of weird reaction from people. Or at least until I explain myself that is."

"_...That's not a good sign._"

"I know it isn't. Even my current friends had that kind of reaction. I doubt we'll even be able to get away with ignoring the rumour and continuing like we did before without people wondering if we're trying to hide something. Hyne, the speculation will kill us alone."

"_...Kill you, not me._" he corrected, his voice starting to become gravelly again. "_I don't personally care about this, but given what's happened this week, I doubt you'll be able withstand it_."

Rinoa bit her lip frantically. "Hyne, I have no idea of what to do. I'm so sorry I dragged you into this..."

"_Stop apologizing, I don't want to hear it._" The instant she shut up, Squall pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "_Are you positive they'll tell people their theory that we slept together during the winter break at some point and pass it off as a rumour or fact?_"

"Knowing those girls and what happened, I'm almost positive." Rinoa affirmed.

He lifted his hand away from his nose and face and looked her straight in the eye. _"Then you have two options. Once you pick one, you'll have to stick it with it no matter what happens. You understand?_"

She nodded. "I understand."

"_The options are essentially the ones you dismissed at the beginning. You can choose to ignore the rumours they'll spread and act normally or, as much as I am opposed to this, you can pretend that we had been secretly together since early November and decided to slowly make it known after I come back._"

Rinoa quirked both eyebrows. "Um, can you explain yourself some more here. I don't quite get the logic here."

"_Simply ignoring the rumours will work best if it's spread to very few people or not taken seriously. They'll eventually die down without any lasting impact. However, if there are many people who confront you about it, then I doubt you'll last given that you've already disregarded every piece of advice I've ever given you._"

"-And about the fake relationship?"

"_I'm getting to that, let me clear the bile from my throat first._"

The raven-haired girl would have given him a look or a comment, but she knew better. This must have been tough for him to even utter it in the first place.

Clearing his throat, his voice regained some normalcy for the time being. "If you anticipate enough people taking an interest in that rumour to not be able to withstand it, faking a relationship of that length would repair the image you project to people."

"Um. Could you be a little more specific?"

Squall sighed again. "...What seems worse to you in a moral sense, someone having a one night stand or someone fooling around with a boyfriend in a month-long relationship?"

"Okay, I see what you mean. But...I had briefly, um, gone out with someone when you were gone and told some people about it. It ended before school started again but, I don't think it would make me look any better."

"Then if you happen to choose this route and someone asks, say that I did something to upset you and you ended it for that span of time. After you decided to force me into the infirmary, you decided to reconsider afterwards - or something to that effect, I don't care."

'_Okay, so that fits in chronologically, but-_'

"So what are the downfalls to that option?" When he tossed her a kind of depreciative 'duh?' look, she frowned. "Hey, I'm trying to objectively look at my options here, give me a break."

Wiping the said look off of his face, he answered her. "You won't be able to break it off for a while if you want to make sure that your reputation is partially salvaged in that regard, regardless if the rumour is rampant among the school or not. Not to mention you're liable to get some crude questions and you'll have to put up with me."

"I understand now. But, I kind of have to ask. Why are you willing to go through so much trouble for me if I have to pick that option?" Rinoa inquired. "I mean, if you're stuck playing the part of my boyfriend, won't that hurt your reputation?"

"Just because I'd be stuck playing the part of your boyfriend doesn't mean I have to act any different." he reasoned. "For all they know, you could be one of those girls who are attracted to cold and callous men, hoping they'll change for some incomprehensible reason that's always beyond everyone."

"Okay, fair enough. But why are you willing to through all this trouble for helping you in Lit? I feel like I'm going to rip you off if we have to go down this route."

"I already said it before Rinoa, I have no choice. I don't have the option of someone else helping me. If it comes down to this, then ...I have no choice but to do it."

"Or is a question of not having any trust in my ability to withstand people's comments?"

He furrowed his eyebrows. "...Can you blame me? It's only been, what, three days and you've already entangled this far me into your mess of a problem already? I'd rather safeguard you by suffering the humiliation of playing a boyfriend than having you back out of the agreement later on, when there's no alternative available, because you ended up having a mental breakdown or some other excuse."

Rinoa looked up at him in awe. "...You must really need this, don't you?"

With a solemn gaze, he replied. "You have no idea."

'_Hyne, the sacrifices he's prepared to make ...is almost sickening. And it wasn't even a few days earlier he didn't even want to admit that he was failing that class. Denial must have finally loosened its unbelievably strong hold on him. Then again, with what his mother said, pulling up his socks in school and whatnot, it would be a shame to have all that work ruined by one lousy class where studying doesn't always help.'_

'_I don't want to let him down, but how can I tell whether or not I'll be able to withstand it? Or which option feels right? Knowing my luck, this rumour will spread across the Garden like wildfire. Then again, if I'm wrong, I'm stuck with him.'_

'_But why would that matter? I don't want a real boyfriend. And I'll have to spend time with him regardless.'_

'_Well, there's only thing to do now.'_

"—Squall?"

Oddly enough, he seemed a fair deal more subdued, like he used up all his energy arguing. ".._.What?_"

"I'm sorry for being so difficult about the whole trust issue. You're right; I probably won't be able to withstand people's comments. I ...just don't have your resilience, and it's just something I've come to accept. I know that I'm going to cause you a lot of trouble, but if you can withstand it, I'll try my best to make sure you pass everything that's left in Lit with flying colours."

"...So I take it we'll have to fake some kind of relationship?"

"I'm almost certain we'll have to. There's just this one thing I have ask of you first."

"...What?"

"Let me kiss you, just once."

Along with the first time she bumped into him all those months ago, the look on his face will forever be etched in her memory just before he went to protest. Or he would have if his voice would have working at the time.

"No Squall, I have to do it. As wrong as this'll sound, I have to be able to do it to convince myself that I can pull this off. If I can fake this kiss then I can pretty much do anything that might be required of me."

Strangely enough, the bemused expression on his face died a little, almost as if he was starting to understand, if only a little. It didn't mean that he wouldn't continue to protest though. "I'm going to get you sick if you do this."

"You got any mouthwash in your bathroom?"

"Yeah, but-"

"-Then I'll gargle a little mouthwash and it'll kill the germs. Please, I have to know if I can do it. Kissing you doesn't have to mean anything. I mean, this won't be your first kiss ever, right?"

"No, it won't but—"

"Please, if you're ready to suffer all of this humiliation in the name of your Lit mark, could suffer one more embarrassment in the privacy of your own room? I promise to never, ever, tell anyone."

Instead of saying anything, Squall looked at her with this pained expression in his eyes for the longest time before he went past her, locked the door, took her hand and led her away from the said door and closer to the desk. There was faint reflective quality in those endlessly-azure eyes of his, Rinoa noticed, a subtle, untold sadness. Sure, he wasn't above faking a meaningless relationship, but maybe he was above faking an intimate moment, or what would have been an intimate moment between two people in the same circumstance. Or maybe that it was just plain wrong on so many levels to fathom or fathom doing.

Kissing a girl he wanted nothing to do with outside helping him with a Literature class? For all she knew, it could have been emotional blasphemy to him. And yet, he looked like was reluctantly willing to do it all the same. This fact puzzled Rinoa. Who was _that_ desperate to ensure a passing grade? Who was _that_ devoted to school for that matter?

Something was fundamentally wrong here.

Regardless of what might have been going on inside that brain of his, Rinoa put it on hold and wasted no time in getting this indecency over with as she closed the gap and their lips brushed against each other in a chaste kiss, the mere seconds it lasted slowed to span to ages in her mind. If this happened in any other situation, it would have been sweet and lovely, but in this case, it made her wonder and feel empty. How he could he softly kiss her back without meaning it?

The instant they parted, he walked towards the door again, unlocking it. Turning his head, he looked at her, same subtle sort of sadness present in his eyes.

"If you get sick, find some way to let me or my mother know." he instructed.

Rinoa nodded in compliance and went through the door. It looked like they were going to start pretending from here on in.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Well, I hope this will tide you guys over for now. I apologize for the wait. Stuff at school kept on coming and coming and coming. Plus I got bit by the one-shot bug and wrote Raindrops, so that basically stole four days away from this. Night!

_-Emerald-Latias_


	22. Chapter XXI – Anatomy of a Charade

**Author's Notes **– Weren't expecting that outcome, weren't you? Haha. Well, to be honest, it was something I wasn't planning on either but... with certain things that happened earlier such as Rinoa breaking it off with her friends, it seemed to fit better. I mean, if I hadn't, I think you'd all be yelling at me to move things forward...whatever forward may '_constitute_' here. Anywho, please enjoy yourselves here and hopefully this speedier update will awesome!

Well...it'd be pretty hard to go any slower than last time. Hehe.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXI – Anatomy of a Charade**

_-_

_Another turning point,  
A fork stuck in the road,  
Time grabs you by the wrist,  
Directs you where to go,  
So make the best of this test,  
And don't ask why,  
It's not a question,  
But a lesson learned in time._

_**-Green Day, Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).**_

-

With the utmost level of determination and focus, Rinoa swished the mint-green mouthwash through every little nook and cranny in her mouth, making sure that she'd have a good chance at preventing herself from falling ill after what just transpired. That of course, consisted of kissing Squall Leonhart, _the_ Squall Leonhart. The guy rumoured to give a freezer a run for its money, reckoned to be a spelling and punctuation whore, thought to be a robot, the guy she knew was more than those titles, _that_ guy.

When her mouth became sore from all of the swishing, she spat the contents into the sink, turned the water on and wiped her mouth. Looking up at the mirror in front of her, she looked like the same person she had been earlier today, but different in a way that she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She put her finger on the tap to stop the stream of water instead.

'_Maybe you just can't get over the fact that Squall Leonhart let you kiss him to pass Lit and that he had this look on his face that you can't get out of your head._'

Her brain had a point.

'_You'd better hope that your poker face doesn't suck today or else Raine's going to get really weirded out._'

She sighed. Her brain had yet _another_ point.

When Raine said she thought her son could use the company, Rinoa was _pretty _sure that didn't include agreeing to fake a relationship with him and partaking in a chaste, loveless kiss. She sighed again. This charade was going to require major planning on many different levels - but not in the bathroom. By the time she'd have all the details sorted out in her head, Raine, and to a lesser extent, Squall, would have thought she'd died in there. Not a good idea. Rinoa decided to leave the bathroom straightaway, even tried to think of something else to take her mind off of this to make the inevitable encounter easier too.

It wasn't an easy task. Her mind didn't seem to want to stray from Squall and what happened. However, right before she took her first step on the stairs, her thoughts went on a tangent. And luckily for her, it was one equally-alluring tangent to ponder about as she doubled back to the bathroom after realizing that she'd forgotten her bag inside the bathroom.

This particular train of thought concerned the enigmatic **22-08** on the inside of his currently-uncovered left wrist.

'_22-08...if that's tattooed, which it probably is, it couldn't possibly be something trivial like a locker combo or something simple he'd have to remember. Unless if he was __**very**__ forgetful – but I doubt that...a lot.' _

'_Hm. It looks like it could stand for a date, which would be...August 22nd._'

'_Could that be for his birthday? Or could it just be the date of something he'd want to remember?_'

'_Rinoa, just ignore it. You're just going to make your brain go in circles when you don't even know anything in the first place._'

By the time her thoughts quickly died out, she was already on the main floor. Rinoa proceeded to peek into the kitchen to see if Raine was in there like last time. Nope. Nothing. Turning back around-

"Aah!"

Raine was right behind her with the pages in her one hand, staring at her blankly in response to her jumping. It was times like these where Rinoa truly could see the familial resemblance between Squall and Raine. Either that, or she should be cutting out her daily caffeine intake.

Placing a free hand over her heart, the teenager tried to regain composure. "I'm sorry...I didn't see you there."

"That's fine." she replied. "Here are the pages for tomorrow."

After Rinoa accepted the said papers, a wave of guilt reflexively washed over her. There was so much that woman was oblivious to right now, between the fake relationship to Squall knowing about the whereabouts of the homework pages, Rinoa felt bad for all of the cloak and dagger business going on here while the sound of loud footsteps permeated her ears.

Wait a minute.._.footsteps? _

Swivelling her head rightward, she saw Squall emerging from the basement stairs, a folded piece of paper in hand. It wasn't long before an awkward pause filled the area. Lost a flood of thoughts, Rinoa froze, not sure of what to do. But Squall apparently did.

Once on the main floor with the both of them, he quickly pointed to the pages she had in hand and looked at Raine.

"-What did you just give her?"

A flash of insight hit Rinoa. She knew exactly what he was doing now.

Having no choice but to play along, Rinoa hid the pages behind her back quickly, purposely making their existence all the more obvious. "Nothing." she answered with a feigned coolness often associated with getting caught in the act.

He furrowed his eyebrows. "...Then what are you hiding behind your back?"

Keeping the pages behind her back, she looked at Raine uncertainly, making the ploy seem even more genuine.

"Squall," Raine said softly, amid a touch of defeat, "-what's behind Rinoa's back is your homework for tomorrow."

Squall furrowed his eyebrows. "I was under the impression that she got them day-by-day from-" He paused to cover a small cough. "-the teachers." He turned to face Rinoa. "Is there something I don't know here?"

Rinoa looked at him blankly, secretly in awe. '_Wow, I never knew he was such a good actor...or liar._'

"Um, I guess I accidently brought more pages than I had to." she lied, well, lying in the context of their act. "They fell out of my bag and your mom picked them up. She caught me in time to give them back."

"I doubt that very much. Your bag's zipper is closed." he remarked. "They couldn't have fallen out. ...Those pages weren't yours, were they?"

'_Wow, he's really good. I wouldn't have expected him to pick up on that contradiction._'

'_Oops, I suppose this is my cue to start stuttering._'

"Um...I..." In midst of her faked word fumbling, Squall tossed in a mild glare. It was a nice touch. Not to mention a nice excuse to crack under the perceived pressure. "...You're right, those pages aren't mine. ...Your mom decided to keep them here so that I wouldn't have so much to keep at home. We agreed for her to give me the next day's pages whenever I came over. We...didn't tell you just to make sure you wouldn't strain yourself by trying to do it all at once."

Squall looked back over at his mom. "-Is this true?"

After a long pause, Raine sighed a little. "Yes...it's true."

He crossed his arms. "There's more to this." This wasn't a question, it was a statement. "If you already had the pages here...why didn't you give me the day's work and have Rinoa come over to explain it later rather than go through this complex charade to make me believe that she was bringing it herself?"

Raine blinked. Apparently this admission wasn't something she'd expect to hear from her son. "I apologize Squall. I didn't realize you would have still accepted the help."

Rinoa knew that this was only a partial truth but, she was thankful the explanation still made sense.

Without acknowledging this further, Squall handed her the paper he had in his hand. "...You forgot this downstairs."

The moment after he gave her the folded page, Squall immediately went back downstairs. Once he was out of sight, Raine had a slightly bemused look on her face. Rinoa didn't blame her, she would have too if she hadn't caught onto his plan. Pocketing the paper he'd given her and unzipping her bag to slide in the homework pages, the teenager mumbled a polite goodbye and left moments later. Squall was a crafty one alright – almost too crafty. No one else in his situation would have been able to single-handedly eliminated the threat of potential blackmail material _**and**_ sowed the seeds of an illusory relationship in his mother's mind quite like that.

As she walked down the snowy sidewalks to her home, Rinoa couldn't help but wonder what the piece of paper in her pocket was. She didn't dare opening it in front of Raine, full-well knowing that she hadn't forgotten anything downstairs. But was this another part of the ploy to get his mother to believe that they were beginning a relationship, or something entirely different?

Rinoa stopped walking and fished through her pants' pocket. After she got it out and unfurled it, she realized that it was the doodled-on page with the Cactuar, _and then_ she noticed that there was something scrawled at the bottom of it.

_Check your e-mail when you get home. We need to discuss the details._

Without a second thought, Rinoa resumed walking ahead, albeit at a faster pace.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Until she sat herself down in front of the computer monitor in her room roughly forty minutes later, time had went by in distorted increments. The supper she was welcomed with at home was nothing more than a hastened blur of a memory. All of her attention had been focused to the anticipation of this very moment, the moment she'd read the unopened e-mail from him.

And without further adieu, she clicked on the bolded corresponding subject title entitled _'Rel. Details'_.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I might be well enough to return to school after tomorrow, so it'd be best if all the details were cleared up now so there won't be any discrepancies in the account of this relationship. To reiterate what's been said before, early to mid November would be the start of this. We split up for the duration I was gone (I assume that the day we spent in the library would serve as a good point considering that they saw us right after and I probably looked irritable) and we reconciled after you forced me to go to the infirmary or the day before. Whichever works better for our purposes. The relationship was considered a secret until after I come back. We could probably use the excuse that we wanted to make sure that this relationship was worth pursuing before making it known._

_Are there any more details you want to clarify or elaborate on?_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Hitting the reply button, Rinoa whipped up a fast response.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Yeah, that sounded good but I think we'd need to have some more personal details filled in to make it seem believable. I don't think anyone will buy it if we don't know anything about each other - nothing too personal, just run-of-the-mill stuff. I don't expect people to quiz us but it's always best if we come prepared. You never know, right? _

_-Rinoa_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

It was maybe a matter of two minutes after she'd clicked the send button that she got a reply from Squall.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Like what - height, blood type, birthday? Superficial things like that?_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa almost had to chuckle at his answer. Who in their right mind would want to know about height and blood type? Birthdays maybe. She got to work on a response.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_You've got the right idea. Stuff like pet peeves, likes, dislikes, favourite colours - those kinds of things. Who knows, maybe if we have something in common, this might make this easier to fake._

_We don't need to know about heights and blood type though. That's going a little far._

_Okay, I'll make a list with the things I just mentioned and you can copy the list in your reply and change the answers._

_Birthday – March 3rd_

_Favourite Colour – Light blue_

_Likes – Painting, writing, my dog Angelo _

_Dislikes – Gym class and anything to do with gym class._

_Pet Peeves - When people purposely take what I say the wrong way just to get a reaction. _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After sending her answer, it didn't take long for another reply to come back to her.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Other than telling you that my birthday is August 23rd, I don't think anything I type will be useful here. I don't have any likes, dislikes or pet peeves that would surprise you. _

_Once we're at school, how are we going to slowly show this to the others? It can't be drastic given that it wouldn't come across as realistic or too subtle given that we're rumoured to have slept together._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

'_Hm...I guess that tattoo didn't stand for his birthday. It'd be a day off. Oh well, there's a mystery to solve for another day.'_ she mused to herself. She cracked her knuckles and started to fervently type up yet another reply.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Well, if you're staying the way you are, I think it would be in our best interest to just have me around you. That'd probably do it. I don't have to act like we're joined at the hip, but if I'm around and you simply accept my company (even when we're not doing something for History), they could start drawing their own conclusions so if the rumour pops up, then that'd justify it. If not, then we let it run its course. Maybe taking a silent approach would work best. You know; the least we say, the better? I know I'll have to deal with my friends but I'll try to keep the details to a minimum. I don't want to risk slipping up and giving them the wrong timeline. _

_I think what we might want to aim for is a kind of mature, comfortable relationship, like we skipped the whole touchy-feely part and went to the part where we're glad to simply be in each others' company?_

_I don't know if that made any sense, I'm probably rambling here. Whichever way you want to take this is fine with me. _

_-Rinoa_

_P.S. Come to think of it, we'll be able to work through your Lit stuff a lot more easily without having to worry about others seeing us. _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

The same pattern followed suit and it was only a matter of minutes before she received another e-mail.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_It sounds reasonable to me. I think all we need to do is figure out a way to help you with the potential questions you might get. Although this plan will allow me to help you cope instead of handling it all by yourself, I doubt I'll be at your side at all times. The key to brushing people's questions will be short and confident answers. The questions you'll be likely to get will probably have to do with how we ended up together, why are you dating a jerk, etc. You get the point? They're not going to be tact. And although I don't know much about your friends, you might even get those kinds of tactless questions from them as well. Don't rule anyone out. The only thing I can think of as a response (and to me, this might be the only explanation) falls along the lines of opposites attract or you can't control who you start to fall for, or some vague answer like that. _

_Rest assured that I'm mentally gagging over those clichéd explanations. I can't think of any real feasible reason why anyone would want a relationship with me._

_-Squall_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

His latest message inadvertently tugged at Rinoa's heartstrings. Although she knew that he didn't care about what people thought or if they even liked him for that matter, she couldn't help but interpret the last line in a different way than he probably intended. It didn't seem like a plain, factual statement to her. It seemed more like he meant it in a matter-of-fact way on the surface but in a self-depreciated way inside. The theory didn't seem all that farfetched to her, not after witnessing the rare display of emotion before and after she'd kissed him anyway. There was a certain complexity about him; that was for certain.

Breaking away from her thoughts, Rinoa started writing another response.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Those ideas were fine but you shouldn't be so hard on yourself Squall. Everyone's got something about them that makes them attract people. I'm not referring to looks – that's something completely different. I'm sure there's something there, you just have to find it. Okay...I'll stop the pep talk before I gag from the clichés too. Anyways, now that that's all solved, I think the only question left is the occasional displays we'll have to do in public to make sure it seems real. I know that we've kind of discussed this before but we should probably add some nuances to the act once people know for sure - nothing big, just little things that add up. No pet names though. Those seem immature and ...just plain creepy. _

_But no matter whatever we choose to do, it can't just be me. I think you'll have to show some subtle signs too. Yours could be a lot more subtle than mine though._

_-Rinoa_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa waited a good half-hour sitting in front of her screen before another message popped up in her inbox.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_It's a good thing you stopped with that tripe when you did. I would have stopped reading altogether – I had for awhile, which explains the time gap. But just so we're clear, I don't need advice or encouragement of any kind, I just want to get through this and move on, okay? _

_Regarding the subtle signs, don't plan them. Knowing them too far in advance will make them seem mechanical. Whatever they'll be will come naturally. If they don't, then we'll worry about it then. There's a high chance we might run into that problem because I don't normally have any chemistry with people. You might be the only one showing any signs of this fake relationship. Then again, that's what might come naturally or it might even be what people will expect from us. _

_Whatever the case may be, don't expect me to hug and/or kiss you in public. What happened in my room was a one-time incident. Things like that are meant to be private. If there are some things you are uncomfortable with, warn me now._

_After my next reply, I'm going to bed so if there's another important point you want me to answer, ask now or else I won't get back to you until tomorrow afternoon or whenever you come over (if I didn't get you sick, that is)._

_-Squall_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

'_We've covered pretty much everything we've needed to cover, so I guess I don't really need to ask anything else..._' she thought, '..._then again, there is be this one little thing I'm kinda curious about. I suppose it won't hurt to ask._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I think we're good for the most part...or from what I can think of off the top of my head. But there's one thing that you wrote in your last message that got me to thinking about what you said earlier today. I'm only asking this out of curiosity, but, when you wrote that 'Things like that are meant to be private.' Was that just an opinion or was it based from something else?_

_-Rinoa_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

His answer came back in less than half a minute.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Opinion._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. Somehow she couldn't shake the feeling that he was lying, or at least lying partially. Especially since what she'd been referring to was,

"_**I mean, this won't be your first kiss ever, right?"**_

"_**No, it won't but—**_

...In what context had that 'no' been in?

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments - **Sorry if this seemed like filler to you guys. I just had to get it done. I don't think Squall would have wanted to wing it when it came to this. I suppose it's his logical slash militaristically-meticulous side showing. At least you can be thankful it was done relatively quickly though.

...And that's _always_ a good thing, _right?_

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbit - **The whole height/blood type thing was a reference to the info you're given on most FF sites.


	23. Chapter XXII – Rinoa the Doormat

**Author's Notes - **Since no one really figured out the songs I used in Chapter XIX, I feel like revealing the ones Squall looked up in order-

**Black** Rain (Ozzy Osbourne), Welcome to the **Black** Parade (My Chemical Romance), Paint it **Black** (The Rolling Stones), **Black** Hole Sun (Soundgarden), **Black** and White People (Matchbox Twenty) and **Black **Balloon (The Goo Goo Dolls).

Rinoa's was Breaking Benjamin's Rain.

Curious about that song Rinoa saw when Squall happened to shut the laptop?

Well, since Squall clicked on the artist of the last song, it's a Dolls' song. So the question remains; what song title would Rinoa find a coincidence in? I'll give you two hints. It's arguably their most famous song with a one-word title that's never mentioned in the lyrics.

Still can't figure it out?

—_Stay tuned and you'll know the answer soon. _And then you'll go, _'Aw, dammit! I should have been able to figure that out!'_

-One last thing. If you start reading this chapter and things start to get odd or strange, don't be alarmed. Just keep on reading and it'll all make sense.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXII – Rinoa the Doormat**

_-_

_I'm so sick, infected with,  
Where I live,  
Let me live without this,  
Empty bliss, selfishness,  
I'm so sick._

_**-Flyleaf, I'm So Sick.**_

-

Logging off of her computer, Rinoa got out of her seat and walked over to the edge of her bed. Without much finesse, she let herself fall backwards on it. When her back landed on what felt like a rectangular object and something pointy two seconds later, she wished that she had taken the precaution of looking. Arching her back up, she plucked the said things from underneath a mottle of covers; it was the journal and pen she'd haphazardly left there before leaving for Squall's. Angling herself so her head was on her pillow and her body laid normally and not sideways, she cracked the spine open and proceeded to write. So many surreal things have happened in the past few hours that it'd be a travesty not to write a little about them.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Wednesday, January 5th (cont.) –_

_Well, it's official. I'm officially starting a fake relationship with Squall once he's back at school. I have no idea how it'll work out though. Too many variables to keep track of, too many unanswered questions. I think I'll just have to follow Squall's lead here. I wouldn't want to make him uncomfortable, especially after what happened today. I don't want to make the situation any more screwed up than it has to be right now. Well, that'd be pretty hard to do but...it's better to play it safe in any case._

_Hyne, there's so much that I don't know or that doesn't add up. I wish I had some answers for a change. I'm afraid that the 'what ifs' might catch up with me someday. The worst possible 'what if' has to do when he was looking for song lyrics on the internet. Coincidence or not, I can't seem to shake the fact that he suddenly decided to stop looking for songs just when a song called 'Iris' popped up on the list. I still don't believe that Squall and that girl did anything like Nat said they did, but...things like that don't help. _

_Okay, maybe I shouldn't think about that. That'd only be giving Nat the satisfaction she doesn't deserve. Squall isn't like that. If he has problems with a meaningless kiss, I doubt he could do __**that**__, drunk or not. Well...that's what I think, anyway._

_That's the other thing on my mind- that kiss. In some ways I can't get over the fact that it happened even though I was the one who insisted on it. I mean, it's so weird that I convinced him to do it so fast, and...God, I can't believe he did it in spite of his objections just for the help in Lit. And there's the fact that he looked so sad all throughout and yet, it wasn't a one-sided kiss like I expected, he actually kissed me back! ...Oh, If only I had the opportunity to know what goes on inside that brain of his sometimes. _

_Either way, I'm exhausted - both physically and mentally. I'm going to go to bed and hope I don't wake up with the Estharian flu._

_...Ironic how a couple of days ago I was thinking that if I got the Estharian flu then I'd know something was wrong?_

_I'm not going to comment on that one._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Dropping the pen and journal onto the floor beside her bed, Rinoa closed her eyes, not particularly concerned about the fact that she was wearing her regular clothes or that her bedroom light was still on.

"_...Shouldn't you be up by now?"_

'_Huh, what? Who said that?'_

Rinoa groggily opened her eyes. She was still in her room, only it must have been the next day judging by the natural sunlight pouring through her window. Rubbing her eyes, she looked over at the clock on the small nightstand to her left.

'_3:29 pm!? What's going on here-_'

She glanced over in the direction of the voice and slinked towards the furthest edge away from him on the bed. Her back was against the wall surrounding her mattress. She kept the covers drawn over herself.

"—What are _you_ doing here? How did you know where I live?"

"I was at school today and you weren't." he said in a calm tone, looking relatively healthier in a buttoned-up charcoal shirt and a pair of jeans. "It didn't take much to find out where you lived. All I had to do is ask the right people."

Rinoa narrowed her eyes. "This doesn't make sense. Didn't you want to avoid doing drastic things to make sure it seems realistic?"

During the momentary gap where the room was silent, she noticed that the tattoo on his watch-less left wrist was absent.

"It isn't drastic when I'm the one assigned to bring you homework. When I told them you caught my flu from what happened, everyone figured it would be safer if I was the one to give you your homework."

"You_ what?_ Rinoa's jaw dropped and her eyes widened. The covers she was holding cascaded down to her lap. "Squall, I thought you didn't want people to know about that! Hyne, I can't_ believe..._ _We're gonna be in so much_... This better be some cruel joke."

He approached the bed and crouched down, looking her square in the eye.

"...Why would I joke about that?" he asked seriously. Rinoa was at a loss for words.

"Um, I know you don't joke around about stuff but... I thought that you were going to do this more subtly, not go out in the open right away like this." Then something dawned on her. "Were you put in a situation where you couldn't lie about what happened?"

"No, but I don't see why that'd make a difference."

Rinoa blinked. "Um, are you okay?"

"I should be asking the same thing to you. Have you already forgotten or are you just ignoring it?"

She furrowed her eyebrows. "Cut it out Squall, you're not making any sense." She went closer to the edge of the bed where he was. "-Are you on something?"

He was mere inches away from her face, looking like he was meticulously analyzing her. Meanwhile, she noticed that the top two buttons of his shirt had accidentally came undone. "You really don't see it, do you?"

"I must be blind as far as you're concerned because I don't see_ any-_"

She was cut off by a noise. That noise being the dull thump of her back hitting the wall behind her as leaned forward to kiss her on the lips. The action sent a pleasurable tingle down her spine, numbing all rational thought. When he shifted his position so his feet weren't planted on the carpet anymore, it allowed him to continue with heighted control and fervour. A couple more buttons of his shirt had mysteriously undone and she couldn't avoid noticing his defined abdominal muscles hard at work. This was..._this was_...the complete opposite of yesterday's kiss and Rinoa didn't know..._what to_...what to make of it. It was all happening so fast...her world began to spin faster and faster as the kisses became more and more intense. She couldn't help but draw comparisons to Tyler.

While it was clear in her mind that she wanted this to stop, she couldn't help but notice that there was also a growing part of her that secretly didn't want to for reasons she couldn't comprehend. As the intensity of the tingles magnified tenfold, her heartbeat raced, her head swam and that clarity in her mind began to go murky.

Was yesterday's kiss a prelude to this all along or had it unintentionally opened a door of some sort? Was she still that lonely inside to contemplate using yet another life to fill a void the wrong way again? Why was this happening in the first place? How could such an introvert be so...skilled at effortlessly taking her breath away and manipulating her integrity with a previously unheard of fit of passion? Did someone slip in some kind of aphrodisiac into his lunch as a joke? Was this even _real?_

Her breaths came in laboured spurts upon the realization that she didn't have any answers to the questions floating in her mind.

In desperation, she looped her hands around his neck to bring him closer and slid herself downward so her body would lie flat on the mattress, fully aware that this would bring him directly over top of her and would serve as a misread signal to go further. It was a chance she was willing to take in order to get some answers. As expected, she began to feel the corners of her sweater lift upwards and it wasn't before she reluctantly had to allow the garment's removal. Given the choice, she would have preferred to keep it on, but it was the only way to get the opportunity she needed. After the sweater was discarded, Rinoa held his face in front of her with her hands on either side.

Gazing into his amorously-darkened eyes, she shivered despite the immense warmth radiating from both of their bodies. The eyes she peered into were a soft and warm hue of aquamarine, like Tristan's had been, and not the distant and cold shade of steel-blue that Squall was infamously known for. It was all the proof she needed.

When he tried to continue, she kicked him where it counted to get him away. When he landed on the floor with a resounding clatter, Rinoa hastily covered herself with some of her comforter and peered down from the edge of her bed. He was flat on his back, nearly motionless save for the occasional twitch.

Rinoa bit her lip. "Are you okay?"

When he could finally sit up, he gritted his teeth. "_**Fine? **_You're_ asking _me_ that _when_ you _just _**kicked**_ me_ in _the_ worst _possible_ place?_"

In any other situation, she might have dared to laugh at him talking in a temporarily inconsistent and squeaky voice, but not now.

"I'm sorry...I didn't want it to go any further. I didn't know you...um, had those kinds of thoughts about me."

He looked at her incredulously. "If it would have been too awkward for you, that's fine. But you don't have to make up some ridiculous lie."

Rinoa blinked dumbly. "Uh Squall? ...What in the world are you talking about?"

"How could you not know I've had those thoughts of you? Aren't you forgetting that we've done this before?"

"What the-" She shook her head. "Stop confusing me Squall, I've never slept with you. That's impossible."

"-Is it really, or are you just ignoring the growing proof?"

She looked down to where he was pointing at from the floor and placed a hand over her lower abdomen just to humour his delusions. However, when she felt an outline of a bump and saw the defined curvature for herself after she adjusted the blanket, Rinoa started shaking feverishly.

'_What's going on here? I'm so confused...none of this is making any sense. I can't be...I haven't even-_'

With a gaunt expression on her face, she looked at him again with unshed tears in her eyes. Squall looked at her with the same kind subtle kind of sadness she saw yesterday.

"...This hasn't been easy for you to come to terms with, has it?"

The tears slowly meandered down her alabaster cheeks. "...I don't know what to think. I really don't."

'_This makes no sense...This makes no sense..._'

Suddenly she felt the mattress sink a little and a pair of strong arms encircling her body. "It'll be fine...please, don't … don't cry. I don't need this happening to me all over again."

She wiped away the stream of tears and looked into those blue eyes of his again, only to notice that they still weren't steel-blue or aquamarine for that matter. They were a deep sapphire blue, bordering on indigo. "_Were.._.were you talking about Iris?"

"_Yeah..._" he whispered softly, "_...I never found out about what happened._"

"...That's horrible."

"_Rinoa," _he rasped, _"...don't ever leave me. I...need you._"

"Don't worry, I won't." She forced her mouth into giving him a demure smile. "…We have to stick together, don't we?"

He tightened his embrace and didn't say a word, opting to bury his head in the crook of her neck.

...And _**that's **_when she woke up with a jolt.

In the artificially-lit room, Rinoa darted her head back and forth to make heads or tails of what just happened. The clock on her nightstand read 3:48 am, the window outside displayed a glowing crescent moon, Squall was nowhere in her room and she was still fully-clad in yesterday's clothes. Tossing away the pooled covers surrounding her body, she lifted her shirt. There was nothing to suggest nothing out of ordinary, only the normal sight of her jutting hip bones and concave stomach.

Rinoa breathed a sigh of relief. It was only a dream. She wasn't pregnant and the only kissing she'd done with Squall was at his house. _It was only a dream_, she reaffirmed to herself.

When it was all settled in her head, Rinoa got up and flicked the light switch off, cloaking herself in the darkness. It was the perfect kind of darkness where no one could be able to see her crying into her pillow, quietly pining away about the things which she couldn't help but be reminded of and tortured by.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa was genuinely surprised when she didn't feel any symptoms of the Estharian flu plague her body when she happened to wake up the next morning. What did surprise her however, was the fact that when she looked at her clock after deducing that she wasn't sick, it told her that she'd already slept through half of first period. She briefly contemplated missing the entire day altogether but ultimately decided against it. Squall would probably have her head if she pulled that one.

After gathering all of her things in her backpack and swapping her clothes for freshly-laundered navy hooded sweatshirt and a pair of baggy black cotton pants, she headed downstairs, hoping that someone was still home to take her to school. She immediately spotted her mom quietly sipping a cup of coffee at the dining room table, reading a section of newspaper. Rinoa approached her cautiously.

"…Mom?"

Her mother set down her cup and looked at her. "Yes dear?"

"Could you take me to school? I overslept because I didn't hear my alarm."

"No, I shut it off this morning. The local radio station announced that all of Balamb's schools were closed today because of last night's heavy snowfall."

Rinoa bit her lip sheepishly. "Oh. I guess I didn't look outside my window. Well, I think I'll go back to bed."

She was about to go back upstairs when her mother's voice called her again. "-Rinoa?"

She turned back around. "Yeah?"

"You're starting to look very thin again, have you been losing more weight?"

"..._No._"

"Okay, I was only asking. Dr. Marnelle wouldn't be too happy with you if you were to ruin all that progress you made in December."

"I know." Rinoa turned around again, climbed up the stairs and made a quick right turn into her room. Dropping her backpack beside her nightstand, she went over to her window to see the snow for herself. Her mom wasn't kidding when it came to the snowfall. Since her window overlooked the side of her house, she could see that the snow had come up to a little less that halfway up the wooden fence which ran along her backyard.

Stepping away from her window, Rinoa was about to plop down on her bed and try for some more sleep when a thought hit her.

'_What about Squall?_'

Choosing to sit down at her computer chair, she logged on. With a few clicks of her mouse and a couple of keystrokes, the screen displayed the typical 'Compose a New E-mail' window, partially completed as far as small details like contact and the title went.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_As you can probably tell, the Garden's closed because of the amount of snow that fell last night. Depending on how it is later today, I might not show up this afternoon. I'll let you know either way._

_-Rinoa_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Staring at the message she had just written, Rinoa couldn't help but feel like it was missing something.

'_Maybe I should tell him that I didn't get sick._' she thought. '_Yeah, that sounds good._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_As you can probably tell, the Garden's closed because of the amount of snow that fell last night. Depending on how it is later today, I might not show up this afternoon. I'll let you know either way. And just so you know, I didn't wake up feeling all fluey so you don't have to worry about getting me sick from that kiss._

_Make sure you stay warm, _

_-Rinoa_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa smiled. That was definitely an improvement over the first letter. After clicking send, she got off of her chair and walked over to her unmade bed, ready to catch up on the sleep she lost last night over that warped dream. Wrapping the messy tangle over herself, Rinoa closed her eyes, waiting for sleep to come.

But it never had the chance to - the telltale sound of her computer notifying her that she had a new e-mail made sleep impossible. Being the curious person that she was, the allure of the unread mail was too much to pass up despite the high probability that all Squall was only going to write something along the lines of, '_Yeah, okay. Whatever._'

'_Oh God,_' she thought ironically, '_I've been around him too much..._'

Walking back over, she plopped herself on her chair and clicked on the pop-up notifying her of the new message.

Rinoa blinked. This wasn't from Squall, this was from Nat. She could tell by the sender's address.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_It isn't really like me to send an e-mail in the place of saying this face to face, but since school's cancelled today and you've been pulling disappearing acts when we're there anyway, I'm making an exception._

_Me, Lucy, Eden and Adrienne are worried about you, more than ever. I know you weren't too thrilled about the 'you and Squall' thing, but Eden honestly didn't know what to make of what she saw between you two and the way you left afterwards. And when I sarcastically said that you guys were having a lovers' quarrel as a joke, the other two thought I was being serious for some reason. _

_I don't know what you've been told but anything that was said later also stemmed from this. I kept on saying sarcastic stuff because I thought they were joking around too. I didn't know that nobody caught on that I wasn't being serious about it._

_I have to admit that his mom showing up made me wonder about why you left, but I figured that you didn't know about her getting the homework. In any case, the whole thing was a big misunderstanding. And if it makes you any better, even Adrienne didn't know and all this confusion only got cleared up last night. _

_In any case, the point is we're worried about you. From what Adrienne told us, you've been going over to his house even when you don't have to since his mom has the homework. I can't imagine it'd be a treat being cooped up with him several hours a day._

_If you've read this, please get a hold of me by e-mail, my cell or whatever. We all really miss having you around and it's only been a couple of days._

_-Nat_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa grimaced. This was the very thing she wanted to avoid seeing – the dreaded '_apology_'. Now nothing was as black and white as it once seemed and that made following through with things that much more difficult. Compared to this, hate mail would have been easier to handle. She sighed. How could she not forgive an honest mishap?

In mid-thought, the same 'new message' noise popped up again. Clicking on the pop-up, she was relieved to know that this e-mail **was** from Squall and not from Eden, Lucy or a random site that wanted her to buy male 'performance' enhancers. _Er...yeah._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I figured that much. If you can't make it, we'll have to exchange e-mails back and forth. I attempted limericks earlier this morning and I'm useless at it (as expected). On another note, don't rule out the possibility of coming down with it just yet. It was a couple of days after I must have touched something at the hospital before I developed any symptoms. The same might happen to you too. _

_-Squall_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Instead of clicking on the reply button right away, Rinoa went back to Nat's letter, copied the entire thing and went back to his letter to reply to it. Rinoa reasoned that maybe Squall would know what to do here.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I'm up for exchanging e-mails in case if the weather's not good, so that's fine. I'll keep in mind what you said about the flu too. I want to write to you about something though. I just got an e-mail from one of the girls I used to hang out with and you're not going to believe this but, the whole thing was a big misunderstanding. Now I don't know what to do. Could you help me out? I'm really hung up on what to do here because we might not have to pretend to go out anymore. Here's what the e-mail said:_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After pasting Nat's message into the e-mail, Rinoa sent it off. When she got a reply three minutes later, it was a little disconcerting.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Before I give you any help, I want to know one thing. Would you be going back to them because you wanted to or because you feel obligated to since it was a 'big misunderstanding' as you put it? _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa grimaced. He was right. '_God I wish he wasn't so perceptive all the time, I feel like such a dummy._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Yeah, I kinda feel obligated to do it. I'd feel so mean if I told her no and I'm not a mean person by nature. God, I can't even say I completely feel obligated either. I mean, I don't like some of the things they do but, I do like them as friends whenever they're not gossiping about something or treating my friend who's pregnant not as well as they should (we all used to hang out together before she got fed up with them after this incident). When I actually heard the mean things they 'allegedly' said, it made it easier to break it off for the flaws they did have. But at the same time, I don't want to want to be perceived as someone similar to them for those bad things. Let's just say people have...thought that before and the outcome wasn't pretty._

_Sorry if this seemed like a whole bunch of rambling to you, I'm really confused._

_-Rinoa _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

When the pop-up notification showed up fifteen minutes later, Rinoa had the feeling that he was asking another small question before getting into the heart of the matter. She was wrong; he must have been a fast typist or really good at anticipating her response.

She honestly didn't know which.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Your problem isn't that you're not mean by nature, you're a doormat. Even though you do assert yourself whenever you have to deal with me, it's never the case anywhere else from what I've seen before. And to put it bluntly, you're not going to get anywhere until you stop playing the lost damsel in distress. The bad things happen because __**you**__ let them happen._

_In all seriousness, you answered your own question in your letter. If you don't want to be perceived as someone like them, it's a good indicator that they're not the kind of people you should keep as friends. What you said about your pregnant friend was the most worrisome. Although I don't know the details, I want you to think this to yourself: If you were the one who was pregnant, would you want friends who didn't treat you as well as they should be when you're already scared senseless? _

_How they treat someone in a vulnerable position tells you what kind of people they are. They may seem like great friends today but when the time comes and you're stuck in a bad situation, you may reconsider that assessment._

_-Squall_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

'_Rinoa the doormat. Ironic how I wrote that in an innocent way in a past entry and it's coming back to haunt me._'

'_Well, I guess there's only one thing I can do.' _

She started to type vigorously.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Although I understand from your letter that it was a big misunderstanding about what happened, I still can't be friends with you guys anymore. The way you guys gossip about people and how you guys don't treat Ivy nicely, well, it's always bothered me and I don't think I could take anymore of it. Don't get me wrong, I've had some great times with you guys and I'll never forget it, but I can't ignore the other stuff. Being on the other end of a rumour really hurt - misunderstanding or not. It didn't have anything to with the fact that you paired me with Squall; it was because it was a hurtful rumour any way you look at it. _

_I hope there aren't any hard feelings._

_-Rinoa_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After clicking on the send button, she immediately went back to Squall's last letter and went to reply to it. She smiled the entire time she was typing the response.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it. I wrote a response to her letter and I really feel good about it. I said what I had on my mind and I did in a civil way. What you said about me being a doormat... it made me think of some of the things that happened and I can honestly say that you hit the nail on the head. Have you ever thought about being a part-time psychiatrist? You'd be really good at it._

_Um, the only thing I don't know what to do about is the whole fake relationship thing. I'm not sure how she'll take it, so I really don't know if we need to fake anything anymore since it was a misunderstanding and she didn't actually think that. But on the other hand, the others did continue on after she made the joke about it so...I really don't know. I can't make heads or tails of what to make of this. Whichever way you want to take this is fine, but you might have a hard time with convincing your mom that you don't like me because of what you already did the other day. _

_-Rinoa _

_P.S. – By the way, I never did tell you what I thought of your acting the other day, didn't I? Well in any case, you're lucky I didn't have the nerve to rat you out. I still can't believe you managed that one._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After she wasted about twenty minutes taking online quizzes on the net to kill time to find out that her favourite colour, GF, dance, and party according to her personality was blue, Alexander, tango and a Halloween party, two e-mails popped up simultaneously.

-One was from Squall and the other was from Nat. Rinoa decided to open Nat's first.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_You're taking things far too seriously. Who ever died from a little gossip? You're acting the same way you did when I was telling everybody about Leonhart and my cousin. I'd tell you that you need to get laid big time but you'd probably get yourself knocked up on the first try like another prissy teenager I know of. Whatever. Go have fun with your new boyfriend – we all know you two will be perfect for one another because you're both so uptight. Don't come crawling back to us when things get worse._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Biting her tongue to refrain from yelling a couple of choice curse words at her computer monitor, she opened up Squall's letter, hoping it would calm her down somehow.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I wouldn't be able to say anything until you got some kind of response Rinoa. The less we have to fake the better, but if she's doesn't take it well, who's to say she might say something like that out of spite? Keep in mind, this is all hypothetical reasoning. I could be completely off the mark here. If you don't get any kind of response, I would say that we should act neutral until you do._

_-Squall_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

The instant she finished reading Squall's letter, Rinoa went back to Nat's, copied it and started typing up a reply, not wasting a single second.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I got a message from her at the same time I got yours so I have the response. I'm going to paste it at the end of this letter. I'm going to warn you in advance, it's not pretty. I'll let you make the call on this one because I'm liable to ask you to fake it just to annoy her and I don't want to use you just because I'm angry. That isn't fair to you because you've already gone above and beyond and you really, really don't know how much I appreciate it. _

_One question though. Do you know this girl? Her name's Nat Piers._

_Anyways, here's the letter. I hope you reply soon._

_-Rinoa _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

It felt like a small eternity had passed before she got another reply. Looking at her watch, it had only been two minutes.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Yes, I do know that girl. Up until last year, she wouldn't stop following me everywhere I went. I finally asked her what her problem was and she mumbled something I couldn't quite hear so I left, figuring it was non-sense anyway. She stopped stalking me after that episode._

_Anyways, I have a question for you. What was it that she said to 'everybody'? I normally don't bother asking about meaningless gossip, but I feel like I'm missing a piece of the puzzle here._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa bit her lip. '_This is going to be so awkward...Here goes nothing._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I'm going to tell you what she said, but before I do, I want you to know that I don't believe it one bit because I think that she was being bitter when she said it (someone joked a long time ago that you turned her down, so that's why I'm saying that). So please don't shoot the messenger here._

_Okay...basically what she said was that over the last winter break (not the last one that just passed; the one before that), you and her cousin Iris got drunk and (this is kind of awkward to write so bear with me) she got pregnant but you never found out what happened to her because she moved away. She also claims that her other cousin who's close to Iris told her. So yeah...that's it. _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

It was maybe a good hour later before she received another response from Squall. She only knew this because it was noon and she had the time to make herself lunch on an ancient stove that pretty well took a whole hour to cook anything. Sitting with a bowl of microwaved leftover pasta because she'd burnt the pizza in the oven, Rinoa clicked on the unopened message.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I've never heard such ridiculous bull in my life. Iris was my age but that was it. I've never been in any situation where that could have happened. If any of those girls believed that I wouldn't want you to be near them, it'd be an insult to your intelligence. _

_Regarding the rest of the letter, it sounds like we'd better go along with faking a relationship. It doesn't sound like she's going to give you an easy time so there's a high likelihood of the rumours happening after all. We'll have to approach this a little differently though. _

_Although I don't want to make it seem like I'm glued to you when I come back, I think it would be best if we were to occasionally do things together (not in a couple-like way) and act like there it's no big deal. And as the weeks progress (depending on how badly that rumour is spread), we'll keep on spending more and more time until everyone more-or-less gets the idea. _

_Now I realize that this probably seems like the exact same thing I said yesterday, but, I'll try to be marginally nicer or polite to you. ...Or whatever. The point is that we have to be civil enough to prove her predictions wrong and make sure that this looks like this relationship is working out without signs of any major problems (this also means that we won't be able to break it off until a lot later down the line). _

_I know that this might not seem like something I'd do, but it's not very often I get angry like this. _

_-Squall_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa set down her bowl of food and sighed in relief – it was only a rumour like she thought.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Don't worry; if I were in your position, I'd be really mad too. Anyways, I don't mind the changes we have to do to the plan, but I think that we should know a little about each other to make it easier. I know you brushed this off yesterday but since we're going to be in this for a longer haul than we originally planned, it might be harder to get away with. It doesn't matter what it is, it just needs to be something. We don't have to tell each other anything we don't want known. After all, if we're going to be spending all that time with together, I don't think it'd be a great idea to only spend it by doing work. They have after-school clubs for that._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Before she even had the chance to stab some pasta onto her fork, another message popped up.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I don't know, the work sounds pretty alluring to me._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa had to laugh. Only Squall would write something like that and still manage to convey the sarcasm perfectly.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Ha. Ha. Very funny mister. Well, I don't think I'll be able to look happy to be with you when I'm bored to death. Need I remind you that I start to think of depressing things when I have nothing to do which is what'll happen when I'm not in the mood for homework? Not to mention thinking of depressing things won't help with my facial expression will be on the outside because I __**apparently**__ wear my heart on my sleeves. _

_-And that won't help us any. Hint. Hint. _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa attempted to stab some more pasta but to no avail. Yet another message popped up.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_What will it take for you to get off my case?_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

'_Ouch. He's still as touchy as ever.' _she mused. '_Well, there's this one thing I can think of at the moment that'll be good for now._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Okay, that's fine. Um...I want to know why you use your mother's maiden name when your real last name is Loire. When Dr. Kadowaki told me that 'Mrs. Loire' was coming, I didn't know that was your mom until she explained it along with a story about how you corrected her about your last name when you were younger. So...I'm kind of curious about that. _

_If there's a really personal reason for it, you don't have to answer._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

This time, Rinoa actually managed to stab some noodles and eat to her heart's content. ...Or what was in the tiny bowl, anyway.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Fine, I'll explain the story behind that but you can't bother me about anything else right now._

_The reason I go by mother's maiden name is to carry on the Leonhart name. Since my mother was an only child and the only Leonhart left since my grandfather was the only son my great-grandparents had, the name would die out if she were to marry, which she did. By the time she was pregnant with me, my grandfather was dying so she asked my father if he would mind it if I were to have her last name instead of his. Seeing as my father knew how much it meant to her and my grandfather, he agreed to do it. For some reason the hospital I was born in wouldn't allow it legally, so my actual name was Squall Loire even though nobody called me that. I legally changed my last name to Leonhart when I turned eighteen though. _

_-Happy now?_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa couldn't help but crack a smile. His little anecdote had been interesting.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Very. Especially when my full name's Rinoa Christine Caraway-Heartilly and there's no story behind that other than my parents not realizing that it would be a mouthful to say whenever I got into trouble._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

She was just about to log off her computer when the designated 'new message' noise and pop-up came up. To say that Rinoa was surprised was a bit of an understatement.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I would have never guessed your middle name was Christine._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

The teenager's smirk widened. _'And they say miracles don't exist.'_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments - **I apologize once again for what probably seems like another filler chapter, but I felt like I had to expand on certain things and reveal others. At least it made for a pretty long chapter to tide you guys over after waiting a week.

So are you guys banging your heads over the Iris thing? ...Eh, probably not. I bet you got caught off guard with the lusty dream sequence though. I felt like I owed you guys for the lack of Squinoa action over the span of twenty-two chapters, so I wanted to make up for it without ruining the story's arc. Hehe, I bet that you've never read a story where things are going so _slow _that the author has to make up for it_, huh?_

Ah, you can ignore that.

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbits - **The result for Rinoa's favourite GF and type of dance from those online quizzes were references to Raindrops (Squall makes reference to the GF Alexander) and Breaking Free (Squall and Rinoa had attempted a tango) respectively. Squall getting kicked between the legs in the dream sequence was an idea taken from a review from Chapter XXI.


	24. Chapter XXIII – First Impressions

**Author's Notes - **Wow, I never had such a big response to a chapter before. I'm almost afraid that my head's gonna swell up to epic proportions now. Hehe. Anyways, seeing as it's been a year since I started Reinventing Me, I thought I'd put out another relatively-quick chapter to celebrate. Cheers!

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXIII – First Impressions**

_-_

_You thought you'd found a friend,  
To take you out of this place,  
Someone you can lend a hand,  
In return for grace,  
It's a beautiful day,  
The sky falls,  
And you feel like it's a beautiful day,  
Don't let it get away._

_**­-U2, Beautiful Day.**_

-

'_My watch says it's three o'clock, the snow is still coming down but the sidewalks are shovelled and the weatherman said there wouldn't be any significant snowfall tonight. I think I can manage going to Squall's._'

She walked away from her living room's huge window and turned to make a beeline for the stairs. Nothing had happened during the afternoon since Squall's last e-mail so things at home were getting a little stagnant. Her mom had already gone to work not too long after she'd talked to her in the morning and her father was on a week-long business trip in Galbadia so she'd been home alone, which would have been okay save for the fact that she couldn't think of anything to do for the life of her. Taking a long nap was out of the question – the aftermath from the e-mails had made sleep nigh impossible. Her body had begun to feel a little warmer and sensitive than usual since then.

Once she was up the stairs and made a quick right into her room, Rinoa double-checked the inside of her knapsack to make sure that she had everything she would need to go over to Squall's. Yep. Everything was there. Strapping it onto her back, she went over to her computer and was about to write him an e-mail saying that she was going to come over but her fingers never carried out the motion. She remembered that his cell's number was still in her phone from Sunday's call. And so she plucked her phone from her nightstand instead. Pressing the talk button and putting it on her ear, she waited for him to pick up on the other end.

_Drrring... Drrring... Drrring... Drrring..._ _Drrring... __**-Click!**_

"_...Hello?"_

"Hey, it's Rinoa. Are you feeling well enough for me to come over and attack limericks with you?

"_Might as well. My flu's virtually gone."_

"Oh, that's good news. I'll be over shortly, 'kay?"

"_Okay._"

Clicking the end button, Rinoa pocketed the cell and scampered out of her room. After a few minutes' worth of bundling herself up against the harsh winter elements in the entranceway, she went out of the house entirely.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_-Knock! Knock!_

When the door opened after a long windy trek to the house, Rinoa almost did a double-take. Raine wasn't the one to answer the door as usual; a man with green eyes and long dark hair served as the designated doorman.

"_Um...hi?_" Suddenly feeling ridiculous in her matching fuzzy powder blue mittens and pom-pom hat, her body temperature seemed to thaw the surrounding snow on the porch. She consciously tugged at her backpack's straps. "_...Is Squall or Ra- Mrs. Loire in?"_

The man greeted her with a slight grin. "I take it your name's Rinoa?"

"Um._.yeah,_ that's me."

"My wife told me that you're helping Squall out in school since he caught a nasty bug in Esthar."

Rinoa sheepishly nodded. "...That's the plan."

Suddenly a booming voice could be heard from the other end of the hallway. "-_Let her inside already, you're going to make her catch a cold Laguna!_"

As if on cue, Laguna scooted to the side and ushered her in, albeit in a visibly embarrassed way. As Raine came closer to the both of them, she gave them both a small smile that could easily dupe any passerby that the booming voice hadn't come from her moments ago. She started the introductions when the older man remembered to close the front door. Rinoa quickly took off her mittens and hat; it was boiling inside the house. Or at least it_ seemed _like it was boiling.

"Rinoa, this is my husband Laguna. He's a travelling journalist. I hope you don't mind but, I've told him about the work you've been doing with Squall."

"Oh, no, that's okay." Rinoa turned towards Laguna. "It's...nice to meet you."

"Likewise. It's not too often Squall has visitors at the house. Or that I get to see the house at all." he joshed. "My work takes me everywhere. I'm lucky if I'm home once a week."

"It must be exciting to see different places and write about them though." Now she was taking off her backpack and coat. "...Have you ever seen the flower fields in Centra?"

Laguna nodded. "I didn't know that one place can have so many blooms growing all at one time. When I was there, I made sure to take lots of pictures. You should see them some of the ones with-"

"Laguna," Raine chided, "I believe Rinoa's here to help Squall with his homework, not to look at photographs."

"Oops. Guess I got carried away. Maybe another time." he mumbled sheepishly. "Well, have fun- _er,_ I mean study hard."

Rinoa couldn't help but smirk a little as she put her hat and mittens into her coat sleeve to hang the coat on the rack beside her. After this, she picked up her bag. "I'll try."

After she passed both of Squall's parents, went down the long hallway and down the steps, Rinoa momentarily stopped once she'd reached the last step right before the basement floor. Sitting down, she put her middle and pointer fingers near the corners of her eyes; a bit of a headache was coming on and she felt a little dizzy. Rinoa closed her eyes.

'..._Where in the world did this come from?_'

Reopening them a couple of moments later when it all seemed to have passed, she stood up and continued to walk towards Squall's room. Once at the foot of his door, Rinoa immediately tensed. This was the always part where she'd get spooked by him.

She tentatively knocked once. Then twice. He opened the door when she was going to go for a third try.

"...You can open your eyes, you know."

Rinoa cracked her left eye open. Her right eye slowly opened right after. "...Sorry. I was expecting you to scare me in some way again like the other times." She breathed a sigh of relief. "As strange as this may sound, I almost feel gypped here."

Squall half-heartedly shrugged. "...Whatever."

Walking into the room, Rinoa sat herself on one of the chairs and set down her bag beside her as he seemed to be rummaging through a pile of sheets on top of the other table. It must have been a solid minute and half before he finally joined her at the desk with some pages in hand.

"...Ready?"

Despite looking better health-wise, Squall looked like he was drained in every sense of the word as far as enthusiasm went.

"...Yeah."

"Okay, we'll both try to write our own limericks. Depending on what I notice you have trouble on in particular, I'll try to help you accordingly. Sound good?"

He passively shrugged and slumped over to start writing something. Although he wouldn't see her doing this, Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. Whether her imagination was playing tricks on her or not, she noticed that he was wearing a button-down shirt and jeans similar to what he was wearing in the dream. Even though she knew it was irrational, she subtly shifted her chair away from him. When it made a loud squeak, she bit her lip when he gave her a weird look. She silently thanked God that none of his buttons had mysteriously come undone.

"Sorry, I should have-" Cough. "-lifted it up a little."

He turned back and resumed writing. "...That cough sounds familiar."

"No," she protested, knowing fully-well what his comment was referring to, "-that's just from the drastic temperature change from being outside to coming in here. You'd be coughing like this too if you were in that situation." Cough. "Is it just me, or is it really warm in here?"

Squall stopped writing altogether and looked at her. "...It's not warm in here unless if I'm generating a ridiculous amount of body heat that I'm not aware of."

"Then I guess my body's probably out of whack from getting surprised upstairs or maybe from that temperature change."

He stared at her incredulously. "...What do you mean, surprised?"

"I met your dad a couple of minutes ago when he opened the door. I wasn't expecting that. He knew about the Centran flower fields and seemed like he's a pretty nice guy."

"...Did he show you any photos?"

"No. Your mom reminded him that I was here to see you, not to look at photos." Rinoa had to smirk. "Seeing the both of your parents together was kinda funny because they're so different. I was expecting your dad to be somewhat like you but I guess you take after your mom."

"We should get back to work."

Rinoa fought back a disappointed grimace. "...Okay, sure."

And with that, he continued to write his limerick whereas Rinoa had only started hers.

After about a good twenty minutes, Rinoa put down her pencil and stopped writing. She just finished her limerick. Looking over to Squall, it looked like he was done too but there was something about the way he looked that suggested that he wasn't quite satisfied with the way it had gone.

"-Stuck?"

Never letting his eyes off the page, he sighed. "...Someone up there must hate me."

"I'd say that it isn't likely that anyone's on your roof but I doubt that's what you meant."

He listlessly gave her his page. The rest spoke for itself. Dull, boring and serious was written all over this thing. Well...not literally, but it still illustrated how he was severely lacking in the humour department. They both exchanged glances.

"You really weren't kidding in that e-mail earlier today." she commented. "You're fine as far as the rhyme scheme and flow goes so the only think I'd suggest is that you take a different approach to this."

"How?"

"Don't worry about what other people think and let your inhibitions go."

He narrowed his eyes. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Everything. When you made that joke about the guys in the class liking the limericks better if they had the obscene kind of humour, you immediately got defensive when I pointed out that you had a bit of a sense of humour. Well, if the teacher's going to be the only one seeing it, why worry about what anyone else will think? They won't read or hear it. We're not presenting those."

"That's easier said than done." he said pointedly. "I still don't have much a sense of humour."

"Can you do witty?"

He blinked. "...Witty? In what way?"

"Quips, sarcasm, verbal humour, that kind of thing."

"Sarcasm doesn't translate well on paper." he stated matter-of-factly.

"I don't know, in your case it just might. It did in one of the e-mails you gave me today."

He furrowed his eyebrows. "Which one?"

"The one where you wrote something like, _'I don't know, the work sounds pretty alluring to me'_."

"That wasn't sarcastic." he countered. "I meant that."

Rinoa rolled her eyes. "Okay, then your '_unintentional_' sarcasm came through as clear as a bell. How about I show you my limerick just so you have an idea and then you try again after?"

He shrugged.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

In the Garden, we all go to class,  
Studying math and hoping to pass,  
I do all of my work,  
And I try not to smirk,  
When the instructor falls on his _glass._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"Done reading?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Did you like it?"

"It was...clever."

"Made you believe I was going write something else on the last line, huh?"

When he nodded, Rinoa could have sworn that she saw the tiniest beginnings of a smirk tugging the corners of his mouth.

"Well, do you at least feel any better about writing your own now that you've seen that it doesn't have to be as ridiculous as those handouts were implying?"

"A little."

"Okay, so how about I'll leave you to write for maybe fifteen minutes and if you still can't think of something, we'll take it from there? I know that this probably sounds just like I said before, but I really want you to try first."

"Hm." He grabbed his page and pencil and looked down at the said page, now attempting to write something else.

"Um, while you're doing that, I'm going to go into your bathroom a splash some water on my face. I'm getting a little too warm for my own good here. I'll be back soon."

He barely acknowledged her leaving as she got up from her chair and walked over to the door in the far corner. She opened and closed it as quietly as she could only to nearly bump into someone in the hallway. Rinoa tried her hardest not to jump seeing as the brown-haired girl she almost ran into had a cast on her one arm and a small bandage on the right side of her forehead.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you there." Rinoa apologized.

"It's fine." There was a small transitory pause. "So, you must be Rinoa?"

Then it clicked in Rinoa's head. '_This must be Squall's older sister Ellone._'

"Oh yeah, I'm Rinoa. And I take it you're Ellone?"

She nodded. "I am. Did Squall tell you about me?"

Rinoa shook her head. "No, it's only the power of deduction I'm afraid. Whenever I come over to help him with his work, he always makes a point of sticking to the agenda."

The girl smiled. "I'm glad to see some things haven't changed since I left home and my little brother for university." There was an intermittent pause. "If you don't mind me asking, what sorts of things have you two been working on?"

"Oh, we mostly work on the things we get from our Literature and Language class. We just started a poetry unit and so far, we've done haikus, lyrics and now I'm helping him with limericks. Needless to say, I think your brother's probably cursing Instructor Kolp's name under his breath right now. Did you ever have her when you were at Balamb Garden?"

"No, I was lucky to have Instructor Aki all four years. I've heard plenty of stories from my friends who did have her class though." Right after, she went walked closer to the door. "I hope you don't mind but I have to ask Squall something. It's been nice talking to you."

Rinoa gave her a polite smile. "Same here."

After Ellone went inside the room, Rinoa feverishly wiped her brow. Her temperature must have inconspicuously spiked during their mini-conversation. She made a beeline to the bathroom's open door, closed it and ran the tap, splashing the steady stream against her face. Whether it was due to the water's icy temperature or coincidental timing, the headache that sprouted when she'd initially went downstairs blossomed into something comparable to a migraine. She stopped the flow of water and firmly pressed her palms against her closed eyelids. The bathroom light was starting to be too bright for her retinas to bear.

'_Hyne, Squall might have been right after all. I think I'm coming down with it. I should go before I start feeling even worse. He'll understand.'_

Blindly making her way out of the bathroom, Rinoa hastily went back towards Squall's room. Her plan was to hope he did a decent enough limerick, promise to figure out a time to go through it at another time if he didn't and collect her bag.

Luckily for her, Ellone must have gotten an answer to her question because she was already on her way upstairs. The door was conveniently left open so Rinoa simply waltzed through it.

"...Got anything for me?" she weakly joked to the lone figure at the desk with his back facing her. She nearly had a heart attack when he extended his left hand backward with a page in it, waving it back and forth until she walked over and took it out of his grasp. He twisted his upper body to face her from the chair.

"...I re-worked the old one."

Rinoa nodded and perused the limerick in question.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Writing a limerick is a chore,  
It's a pointless and needless bore,  
I'm wasting pages,  
It's taking ages,  
Please, five lines are enough - no more!

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

When Rinoa gave him back the page, he asked, "...Any better?"

She nodded. "Definitely. I liked the idea of the limerick complaining about limericks. Despite what I said earlier about letting your inhibitions go, I think that the best part about this is that you wrote something witty that's in your comfort zone and I didn't have to prod you." Rinoa managed a microscopic smile. "You know, I think you have a knack for making complaining fun.._ny-oww._"

Squall looked at her with a bemused stare as she pressed both palms against her forehead.

She lifted one of her palms away from her face. "...Squall, before you were told that you had the flu, did you happen to have any wicked migraines? I feel like I'm getting hit by a mallet repeatedly right now."

"I'd experienced some." he answered with an absurd level of calmness in his tone.

Rinoa sighed. "Then I am coming down with it after all. Well, I'd better head home before I-" She stopped in mid-sentence to cradle her stomach.

He finally got up from his seat and looked at her with a solemn, yet stern expression on his face. "...You won't be able to make it to your house."

Rinoa turned away from him. "No, I'll be-"

She was cut off and physically stopped at the same time. He had his hand planted firmly on her shoulder. She shuddered at his touch. "You're not going to make it, trust me. Once your stomach starts aching, it progresses extremely fast."

She spun around, moved his hand away from her shoulder and took a step back. The quick spin was a bad idea; it only made her even dizzier. Rinoa stumbled a bit but was determined not to let him see it.

She arched her eyebrows. "It's not that far from my house, why are you making such a fuss?"

"I'm not making a fuss, what I said was a factual statement." he argued. "Nothing more."

"And this is coming from someone who couldn't admit he was suffering from the same thing a couple of days ago? There's got to be-" Cough. Cough."-more to it."

He let out a load-bearing sigh. "I told this you this was going to happen if we'd kiss. It was wrong from the very beginning and I shouldn't have allowed it. If something happens on the way to your house, I'm going to feel responsible."

"Well I'm-" Her stomach lurched violently. Finishing her sentence didn't seem so important right now; instead she opted to sprint out of his room with a hand over her mouth. For a brief second, she thanked Hyne that the door was already open and nobody was in there. Otherwise, she probably wouldn't have made it in time to avoid a big mess.

'_Hyne I feel like I'm-_'

Wretch.

'_-going to-_'

Wretch.

'_-die very-_'

Wretch.

'-_soon. He wasn't-_'

Wretch.

'_-kidding._'

Behind her, she could hear the bathroom door closing. Still kneeling at the porcelain fixture's base, Rinoa shakily wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Although she still felt like crap, she also felt like worst had passe_d_- as quickly as she thought that, she quickly threw up the dregs of colourless acid in her stomach.

...So much for that estimation. She clung to the toilet bowl for dear life and started to quietly sob.

'_I have a new respect for Squall now. At least he wasn't crying like a baby when he had this._'

At that moment, she involuntarily smiled. The idea of him crying like a baby was kind of ridiculous to picture in her mind. And then she smiled for that limerick he made. Only he'd write something like that, she thought. Her smile lessened to a neutral expression, maybe it was safe now - or at least _for_ now. All of a sudden, Rinoa's ears perked up to the sound of two people outside of the bathroom door.

"_She's throwing up?_" Rinoa could instantly tell that this was Raine speaking.

"_...Yeah, all throughout the time she was with me she'd been saying that she feeling very warm. At one point she was talking about something else when she stopped in mid-sentence and bolted out of the room._"

"_Do you have any idea what's causing this? She seemed fine when she was upstairs with me and your father._"

There was a large enough pause where Rinoa threw up and there hadn't been any overlapping speech. "..._I don't know._"

"_Squall, is there something you're not telling me?_"

"_No. It just happened very suddenly. ...I have no idea of what's causing this._"

There was a sigh. "_Squall, I don't think either of us can handle what happened in August again. If there's something, tell me now._"

"_Don't __**ever**__ bring that up._" Now Squall sounded like he was seething. _"Just because I said was that I didn't know why she got sick, it doesn't automatically mean I'm hiding something like that._"

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. '_Something like what?_'

A little later on, when Rinoa felt okay enough, she latched on to the toilet's handle and flushed. Although she felt like the living dead now, the worst seemed to be over - for real this time. There was light rapping at the door.

"_Rinoa, are you okay in there?_"

She wiped her mouth again. The calmness and higher volume of Raine's tone suggested that neither of them realized that their previous conversation was audible. "_I'm fine now...I just need to walk home._" she wearily rasped.

"_Not in that condition, you're not. Is there anyone going to be at home to look after you?_"

"_No...not until maybe seven._"

"_We'll keep you here until then. You can rest on Squall's bed in the meantime._"

With a little effort, Rinoa managed to get off of the floor and walk towards the door. She didn't dare to take a glance at the bathroom mirror, venturing that she probably looked like an absolute wreck at the moment. After she twisted the doorknob and swung the door wide open, Rinoa was met with Raine who had an oversized pale yellow blanket in her hands.

"I sent Squall upstairs to get you some soda crackers and ginger ale. They should help settle your stomach."

The teenager said a weak thank you and accepted the blanket. Raine followed her as she skittered into the room. Once she approached the bed inside the room, Rinoa felt a little apprehensive about actually lying down in it. There was something lying in other people's beds that made her uneasy. No matter the person, there was always a history attached to something as personal as a bed. It was one of the reasons why it was theirs; they'd made it their own. And laying in it would disturb the nature of things. Well, there was that, and the fact that if it was taken out of context, it would sound _so_ wrong.

Then her mind caught up with her. '_Wait,_ _I'm his fake girlfriend at school, claimed to have slept with him. Why should I be bothered about the potential teasing I'd get by lying in his bed?_'

'..._I've really got to get used to that._'

Having no option but to lie down, Rinoa did so in a slow and slightly hesitant manner. Surprisingly enough, the pillow, mattress and covers were all very soft. Rinoa couldn't help but feel a little perturbed by the level of comfort here. She'd been expecting the exact opposite considering it was _Squall's_ bed after all.

"Is there anything else you might need?" the older woman offered.

"_No...I'll be fine with a little rest._"

Raine looked at her sympathetically. "Okay. Squall should be in here shortly."

After she left, Rinoa closed her eyes, if only for a little bit. She slowly reopened them shortly after hearing the clink of ice cubes in glass and the crinkling noise of a soda cracker package nearby. Squall sat at the desk looking rather miserable as he set the other things aside on it.

She gave him a diluted smile and tried cheering him up. "_...I'd joke and say this must be the first time you've had a girl in your bed, but I'd have no way of knowing for sure._"

He didn't take to the joke. "Do you realize how much this has complicated things?"

"_No...why?_"

"If your symptoms worsened this fast then I wouldn't be surprised if you're not going to be at school for awhile. And it that's the case, we'll probably have to do things a lot faster than I would have liked - especially I'm the one who ends up bringing your homework."

"_...Why would they be faster at school? Being sick for a couple of days won't make people-" _Cough. _"-think things. It's not that uncommon._"

"You give people far too much credit. They always find ways to interpret something like this to their liking. It's almost a given."

Rinoa frowned and her nausea was starting to get worse again. "..._At least you won't have to worry about limericks anymore._"

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **There! Done in a week, how do you like that? Hehe. I hope this chapter was okay as things are starting to pick up with Squall and Rinoa trouble-wise.

Hope you guys liked the limericks by the way. It's my first time writing them.

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbit - **The whole limerick idea sprung from a random conversation with a reader and this marks the first time Ellone has made an appearance in any of my fics. Sad isn't it?


	25. Chapter XXIV – Role Reversal

**Author's Notes – **Whoa...this is creepy, Chapter XXIII made Reinventing Me _exactly_ one thousand words less than my longest fic in my profile (Breaking Free). I'm thoroughly spooked. I knew it was going to be close but...wow. Oh well, with this new chapter, Reinventing Me is now my longest. And I thought that day would never come. Tsk. Tsk.

Holy crap! I just passed 10,000 hits for this thing! ...I'm speechless.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXIV – Role Reversal**

_-_

_The truth hurts so bad,  
Wouldn't you say?  
So why tell it?  
If ignorance is bliss,  
Then I'm in heaven now._

_**-Queens of the Stone Age, 3's & 7's**_

-

_Friday, January 7__th__ –_

_I have the feeling I'm going to be writing a lot of journal entries in the next couple of days. I'm not really allowed to get up unless if I absolutely have to. Needless to say, I'm going crazy and I think I'm getting bed sores. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little, but...it's really annoying to be stuck in bed all day. When Squall gets here, the first thing I'm going to tell him is that I can empathize with the crippling boredom he must have suffered a couple of days ago. I'm almost tempted to clean my room. __**Almost.**_

_Oh yeah, I got ahead of myself here. Like he predicted yesterday, now he's going to be the one coming over to bring my homework. It was decided on the basis that he was the only one who actually knew why I wasn't at school, the one who lived closest, the least likely to get sick and now he's also reputed to be my, ahem, 'lover'. Of course, I was told this via e-mail and a lot of the sarcasm was lost in translation so I nearly died laughing. Literally. I was gasping for air because the laughing triggered a huge coughing fit. It was the kind of chain coughing that steals your breath. _

_On another note, the medicine I was prescribed this afternoon is doing a good job at controlling the nausea so I was able to devote enough brainpower to know that the irony's not lost on me. I suppose he was right about the sarcasm thing after all too. But in any case, the reason why I said it isn't lost on me is because we're basically reversing roles, only I seemed to have caught a more severe version of his flu because of a weaker immune system. Which explains why Squall got over his so quickly and I came down with it faster. I just pray that he doesn't dress or do anything similar to what happened in the dream when he's over here or else I might curl into a little ball and start crying. _

_Not to mention the fact that he was right about people at school is sad, really. But at least I made the right decision regardless if people thought this because of the rumour or because of me being sick combined with the rumour. I'll have him as a safeguard and I know that the friends who accept me for me will back me up. Or I hope. At least Squall's going to be a little nicer to me at school so it won't be completely unbearable. And I won't have to deal with any other failed relationships at the moment, which is a bonus. I really warmed up to the idea of faking a good relationship though. Who knows, maybe it'll be good practice if I ever decide to pursue one after I'm twenty, possibly twenty-five._

_Going on a little tangent, Squall didn't seem too happy about Seifer's reaction whatsoever. To quote the message, Seifer 'didn't know it was possible to hit puberty at eighteen.' In spite of myself, I have to admit that it was funny. I can't help but wonder what he'll say to me though - or what anyone will say to me for that matter. Or how I'll have to act in terms of closeness with Squall, like what kinds of gestures, words– okay, I'd better stop now before my brain implodes. I'll have to leave this up to natural chemistry (or lack there of). Hm. Come to think of it, with the act he pulled with his mom the other day, I wonder if those acting skills can convince people at school? Oh well, I'll just have to see when the time comes._

_Hyne, even though I'm bored, I'm also so zapped right now. I think I'm going to sleep during most of the weekend. Squall won't come until Sunday anyway so that plan could potentially work out. He gave me the options to start on Saturday or Sunday and I chose Sunday. I'm a lot sicker than he was so I wanted to give myself more time to get better first._

_I'd say that my bed is calling me but I'm already in it. Night!_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Saturday, January 8__th__ –_

_I must have been more zapped than I thought because I went to bed at about nine last night and I didn't wake up until two this afternoon. I don't think I've ever slept fifteen hours straight before. In any case, I feel a little better...which kinda makes the bored factor even worse because I'm not tired enough to take long naps to kill the time and not well enough to get a head start on the homework. Wait- come to think of it, Squall would be at school so he wouldn't need the pages at his house for himself so he could just give them to me instead. Wow, this is weird. It's probably a good thing that he eliminated the possibility of blackmail then- _

_Oh. My. God. Did he see that coming too? _

_If he did, I am impressed. I should ask him. Maybe after telling him about the being bored thing. Oh, if only he were here today and not tomorrow. Hyne, I must be bored (or delusional, I'm not sure), I just wished I had my homework a day earlier. Eek. _

_Maybe I should check the computer to pass the time. I'm sure that I filled up the 'sleep/rest' quota for the day anyways. Plus I don't want to creep myself out anymore than I already have. _

_...I just reread this last paragraph and now I realize that I'm a huge hypocrite. I think I owe an apology to Squall for nagging him when he was sick. _

_Great, now that's three things I have to tell him. He's going to think I'm a chatterbox. Wonderful. _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After she slowly peeled back the covers, Rinoa drifted her legs towards the edge of the bed and onto the carpeted floor below. It wasn't long before she got off of the bed itself and quietly walked over to the idle computer. She sat down and logged on. The telltale new message pop-up told her that she had a new e-mail from Squall and it had been sent at noon.It was four in the afternoon now.

Rinoa fought back a cough. Hopefully it wasn't a message telling her that he was going to cancel for tomorrow. It couldn't have been asking for the directions to her house or the time he was supposed to come, they'd already gone through those details in a prior e-mail last night.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_There's been a change of plans at my house. I have to bring Ellone to the train station Sunday afternoon so we'll have to reschedule the time I'm supposed to be at your house. I can come in the morning or after supper on Sunday or even tonight if those times aren't good for you. I'll be checking my e-mail periodically so I'll be able to answer within the hour of your reply._

_-Squall_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa couldn't help but smirk a little. '_Well, I was half right._'

She immediately started typing up a response.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I'm feeling better than I thought I was going to be so I suppose tonight would be fine. Whenever you can come over is fine with me, I'll just let my mom know (my dad's out of town for awhile). I forgot to tell you this but we'll be doing the work in my dining room table just to reassure her. She knows it's just for school and that you're not going to do anything to me, but I think that if we were to do things that way, it'll show her that you're a serious school-minded person (well, you obviously are, but she doesn't know that) and give her a good impression. I'm just doing this as a precaution in case if we have to fake the relationship in front of our parents too. Probably not, but, you never know, right? _

_Anyways, I'll be on the computer for a little while, so I'll be able to answer back quickly. Oh and before I forget, I apologize for being kinda mean to you when you cleaned up your room that day instead of resting. Let's just say I now empathize with the ultra-bored feeling. I almost wanted to clean my own room._

_-Rinoa_

_P.S – By the way, when you pulled that stunt in front of your mom, did you do it knowing that I'd need the pages later or was it a lucky coincidence? Just curious._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After wasting about a good twenty minutes finding out that, among other things, her full name, middle included, could spell out _On rainiest rich. Aha! Watery, lyrical_and Ivy's, Adrienne's, Ryan's, Seifer's and Squall's first and last names could respectfully spell out, '_Wry, sick vomiter_', _'Strained lane', 'Rants lay', 'Fair as seemly' _and Rinoa's personal favourite, '_Hell! Snarl quota_' on an anagram site, she received another message.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_I'll be over at seven tonight then. We probably won't have to extend the act to your mom or dad but if what happened at school is any indicator, maintaining a good impression will help things if I have to come over to your house on occasion to plan certain things or for the help in Lit. I already know that you gave both of my parents a good impression so you won't have to do the same thing if you have to come over to my house for whatever reason. _

_However, seeing as we're going to be in your dining room and not anywhere remotely secluded, we'll need to discuss the details for your return at school via e-mail. There will be a fair amount of people who will believe the rumour that we fooled around together is true and a larger amount of people who'll wait and see our interactions to make the decision to believe it or not. What I think we should do have our interactions subtle enough to suggest some kind of relationship so your reputation is salvaged in the eyes of those who are convinced it's true and for the ones who are waiting on our interactions, they'll probably question the rumour because of the subtleness and maybe infer that we're together but we haven't slept together. _

_This is all purely hypothetical so I could be wrong. But I think our best bet is to stay somewhat neutral or vague enough so this can be interpreted in a number of different ways. I know I said that I'd act marginally nicer to you but I honestly have no idea of how to convey this other than you sticking around me without me getting annoyed by it. It wouldn't be a good idea to have too much planned in advance like I've said before but we might need a couple of guidelines to follow in case if the lack of natural chemistry is enough to make things difficult. If you have any idea of what to do, it'll probably help us._

_And to answer your PS, that was only a coincidence._

_-Squall _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

'_Oh well, at least that's one question answered._' she mused. '_Hm. What could I say, what could I say...what could I-Oh!_'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Hey, I was thinking about something. You know how those girls got that initial impression that there was something between us because they overheard us talking? Well, what if we were to exchange questions randomly? Nothing personal, just related to work, school stuff and things of that nature. You don't have to ask any because it's not likely that you'll have them but, if I were to come up to you and ask the odd question and you answer it normally with no protests, it could be subtle yet to those people who seem to look into things too much, it'll prove something to them and not to the others. Not to mention it'll kinda reinforce the whole 'you tolerating me' thing. Does that make any sense? If it's stupid idea feel free to tell me that._

_-Rinoa_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Drumming her fingers idly on the computer desk, Rinoa was surprised when another message came in about a minute flat.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_It'll work. I'm not usually one for answering questions so it'll raise suspicion to the ones who are looking into this. The only things I ask are that if you can help it, ask genuine questions and do this sparingly. Otherwise, you'll look like a clueless, co-dependent idiot. I might ask you the occasional question in Kolp's class as long as we're not on opposite sides in the classroom. That way it won't seem that lopsided here._

_I'm not going to be on my laptop for the rest of the night so I won't read any reply you send until tomorrow._

_-Squall_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After her eyes had finished reading the letter, Rinoa closed all of the windows and logged off of the computer, genuinely surprised. She'd been expecting a flat-out '_that was a stupid idea_' from him. Then again, a lot of things were catching her off-guard as of late. But in any case, Rinoa got up from her chair; she had to throw on something half-decent to wear and tell her mom that they'd be having a visitor after supper. She doubted Squall would want to see her in a pair of worn-out light blue pyjamas.

Following a quick nap and supper, Rinoa sat herself on her living room couch, periodically glancing at her watch. It was a couple of minutes before seven and she was expecting him at the door any second now. She already had all of her textbooks, notebooks and pens carefully laid out on the dining room table so she was only waiting on him at the moment.

A few more minutes had passed and Rinoa started to wonder even though it was rare for anyone to be _exactly_ on time. She stifled a few errant coughs and dug out her cell from one of her pockets. Her screen indicated that she hadn't missed any messages after pressing the corresponding sequence of buttons to check.

Seven o'clock came and went without so much as a peep, as did seven-ten, seven-twenty and seven-thirty. Now Rinoa was genuinely worried. After covering a few more coughs, she decided to call his cell. Following a few intermittent beeps, she got the automated voice-mail._ Hm,_ she thought_, maybe he was on his way and the weather was making it hard for him to walk over here?_

With that thought, Rinoa got up and walked over to the window. Even from the inside, she could still feel a chill as she saw the massive flurry of snowflakes drift downwards and highlight the dark indigo sky.

Rinoa put a palm against one of the panes of glass. '_I hope he's alright._'

Moments later, she whipped her head to the entranceway on her left and backed away from the window. There was some knocking at the door. Rinoa briskly walked to the entranceway door and opened it and was greeted with the sight of a snow-covered, disgruntled and presumably half-frozen Squall. It was so bad that the melting snow in his hair made him look like a drowned rat and his nose and cheeks were red.

Regardless of how he looked, she quickly ushered him in and closed the door, preventing the harsh winter elements from entering the house anymore. After he took off his snow-laden backpack, Rinoa helped him out of his coat.

"_You could have cancelled if the weather was going to cause this much trouble for-_" Cough. "_-you. I would have understood._"

He flicked out the lingering snow hidden in the collar of his loose navy sweater. "...A little cold weather never killed anyone."

"_Actually, it can._" she casually argued, hoarse voice and all. "_It's called hypothermia._"

"Whatever." He bent over to untie each individual lace of his boots. "...I apologize for being late."

While Squall was still untying his laces, Rinoa arched an eyebrow. '_He's still apologizing for being late even when I said I would have understood if he had to cancel because of this weather? I don't get it._'

When he finally had his boots off, Rinoa took his coat and turned around to hang it on the entranceway's coat rack behind her. She turned back around to see him still standing in the same spot with his knapsack in hand, probably standing in a wet spot for all she knew.

"_I've got everything set up at the dining room table,_" she informed him, "_-you might see my mom at one point or another while you're here but other than that, we'll be mostly by ourselves. You can follow me._"

He wordlessly followed her into the L-shaped living room and around the right bend into the adjoined dining room. Once they were near the oval table, Rinoa pulled out the closest chair on the end for him and pulled out the one on the left side for herself. When he set down his bag and sat at his designated seat, Rinoa offered to make something hot to drink if he needed to warm up. Although she wasn't surprised to hear him decline the offer, it was a surprise to hear some heavy panting.

Not from Squall of course, but from her faithful furry canine companion, Angelo. The furry companion in question seemed to have come from her normal stomping grounds in the basement, up the stairs, past the kitchen and made her way in the dining room. Rinoa bit her lip. Although she was a good dog, Angelo was very protective and wasn't keen on male strangers hanging around her. For some reason, she always thought they were out to harm her. In any case, the teenager knew that she had a limited amount of time before Squall was going to get barked at and possibly bit.

By the time she circled around Squall's chair, it was already too late. The dog was.._.sniffing around his feet? _Rinoa stood there, somewhat bemused, even more so when Squall tentatively patted Angelo on the head and she seemed to be enjoying it. Rinoa almost wanted to shake her head to make sure she wasn't hallucinating this and Squall wasn't getting mauled in reality.

Nope. Her eyes weren't fooling her today. This was _really_ happening.

After a while, Angelo went over to her and once she gave her a few choice scratches behind her ear, the dog scurried off upstairs. When Rinoa went back around his seat to hers and sat down, both teenagers exchanged looks, only she had the more confused expression out of the two of them.

"_...That was weird. Angelo never likes it when there are unfamiliar guys at the house. Normally she would have barked-_" Cough. "_- and possibly bit you._"

He shrugged. "Maybe your dog thought I was a woman."

Rinoa blinked hard. '..._Did he just say what I thought he said?_'

"_I'm not going to comment on that one._" she said. "_With our history of ridiculous arguments, we're liable to have an argument about how you couldn't possibly look like a woman and someone will overhear and it'll be __**very-**__"___Cough. _"-awkward._"

"...So you _are _learning after all."

"_What?_" She did a double-take between two minor coughing fits. "_-That was a test?_"

"No, I'm simply surprised that you caught yourself." he clarified. "...I wasn't thinking when I said that first comment so I was anticipating a stupid follow-up discussion later."

"_Um...are you okay Squall?_" she asked, "_-You just said that you weren't thinking._"

He rolled his eyes. "If this is your idea of a joke, I'm not laughing."

She gave him a reproachful look. "_That comment was a test and you failed_."

Squall blinked. "...What in Hyne's name are you talking about?"

"_Well,_" she started to explain, "_-I figured that we should practice subtle mini-interactions while you're here, and you just bombed that one._"

"...You didn't give me any forewarning there." he said pointedly.

"_Yeah, I know but there'll probably be times where we'll unexpectedly have to start acting on the fly so I'd like our transitions to be seamless just in case. Besides,_" She leaned over to whisper in his left ear. "_-no one's going to believe I let you do me if you can't even take a small joke like that._"

When Rinoa went back to sitting normally again, she noticed that his face was a little more pink than normal; even considering the red weather-related splotches he had earlier. Then he somehow regained a bit of composure, he narrowed his eyes at her.

"...You're having fun with this, aren't you?"

"_No, I was being-"_ Cough. Cough._ "-serious, actually. But what you said right there would have been a good answer to my joke. Hey, I just-_" Cough. "_-thought of something._"

He rubbed his eyes tiredly with his thumb and forefinger. "...What?"

"_I don't think you would have admitted that you weren't thinking a couple of days earlier or even said the whole 'Angelo thinking you were a woman' thing in the first place. You're saying more to me._"

Right after the she finished speaking, he immediately stopped rubbing his eyes and dipped his upper body to the side to fiddle with his backpack's zipper, pluck out a few pages and put them on the table with the other things on it with a loud '_thunk_' noise. Rinoa got the hint.

"_Um..." _There was a long and awkward pause on her behalf. _"-so I guess we'll be working on History and I'll just keep the Lit pages?_"

He nodded.

Sorting through the pages laid in front of her, she separated the ones for Lit from the History pages and made two neat piles, eventually pushing the Lit pile away from them. She looked at him attentively, waiting for him to start. He never did.

Just like the time in the library, they were interrupted before he got a chance to say anything. Even though she couldn't see her, she could hear the distinct sound of her mom descending the upper level stairs, presumably coming down to see what kind of boy was tutoring her daughter and was responsible for getting her sick in the first place. Rinoa cast a furtive look at Squall. She was thankful his hair had dried enough so he didn't look like a drowned rat anymore. Not to mention they looked like they were genuinely set up for the tutoring session and her mom probably didn't hear what was said a couple of minutes ago. Or at least she hoped not.

And sure enough the older woman walked right by the dining room table where they were sitting, stopped and took a good long look at Squall.

"-Did the weather give you any trouble?"

"A little." he tersely answered.

"Hm, I see. I'm Rinoa's mother, Mrs. Heartilly. It's very considerate of you to help Rinoa stay caught up in school. I heard that there weren't too many people to volunteer since she had the Estharian flu."

Unless if it was her imagination fooling around with her sight, Rinoa could have sworn that she saw a flicker of hurt in his eyes.

'_That kiss isn't going to stop haunting his mind alone any time soon, is it?' _she pondered while sporting a slightly pained look of her own during his somewhat short and generic reply.

"Rinoa, if you could spare a moment, could I talk to you upstairs?"

In the midst of wondering where this request came from or what Squall had even said for that matter, Rinoa hazily nodded and both mother and daughter went upstairs, leaving Squall to sit by himself for the moment. The teenager was led into her own room where her mom shut the door. Alarm bells started ringing in Rinoa's head; something didn't seem right.

"Rinoa, is there something you haven't been telling me?"

Uh oh, this couldn't be good. This seemed like a carbon-copy version of Raine and Squall's talk on Thursday outside of the bathroom door.

"_I...don't know what you're talking about Mom._"

"I was doing some research on the Estharian flu on the internet and it turns out that you can only spread it from personal items and body fluids, even after most of the symptoms have disappeared. Did something happen between you two during the days you were over there?"

She coughed. "_**No.**_"

"Rinoa, please don't lie to me." she implored. "I'm not going to get mad; I just want to know."

Rinoa averted her eyes. '_What should I do? I probably reacted too harshly to get away with saying he sneezed on me or something like that. Not to mention if I denied everything she'd probably think we did more._'

'_Hyne...I wish I didn't have to lie to her so much, she doesn't deserve it. She never knew about Tristan, the baby, Tyler or anything. All she knew that I was an off-and-on emotional wreck in the last couple of months for no reason. And for all she knows, I'm probably still 'innocent'._'

"_We're...going out._" Rinoa mumbled. "_I...um, was going to wait until Dad came home to tell you guys at the same time, but then this happened._"

Julia furrowed her eyebrows. "So what made you get sick Rinoa? His parents _were_ there when you were tutoring, right?"

"_No, they were there and we didn't-_" Cough. "_-do anything like that, I just gave him a quick peck. I guess I didn't realize I'd get myself sick because he wasn't coughing and seemed pretty healthy at the time. That's-_" Cough. "_-all._"

Her mother looked more at ease. "You don't know how relieved I am Rinoa. I was worried about you for a while there."

"_I'm sorry I made you worry Mom. I didn't mean to look like I was hiding something; I just wanted to wait until Dad was home to tell you both._"

"You don't have to wait for approval Rinoa, I respect any decision you make in your personal life as long as it makes you happy and you protect yourself when the time comes much later on."

"_Thanks Mom._" She paused for a moment before deciding on taking the initiative on something. "_Um, just out of curiosity, what do you think of him so far?_"

"He seems like a very polite boy when I talked to him for that short little while, very reserved though."

"_Yeah, he gives that impression to everyone but once you start to know him, he's a very interesting person._"

"Okay, but just remember, he's here to help you with school today, not for anything else." she light-heartedly chided.

She smirked. "_I know._"

As she walked out of her room, Rinoa couldn't help but beam. '_Wow, I'm a really good actress. And I didn't even have to lie for that last part._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"...What was that about?" he asked when she finally came downstairs.

Rinoa calmly sat down. "_She knows._"

He arched an eyebrow. "Knows about _what_ exactly?"

"_Us._" she coolly responded. "_She did some extra research on the Estharian flu and confronted me about it because she found out about the ways it could be passed._" Cough. Cough. "_So I told her we were together and that I gave you a quick peck at one point so she wouldn't draw any other kind of conclusion_."

He rolled his eyes. "Great. Now we're two-for-two here."

She sputtered a little. "..._Your parents thought the same thing?_"

"No, just my mother. My father doesn't know enough to have an opinion." He sighed. "I don't know if I should feel relieved that the act will be easier since she likes you enough to approve of this _...relationship_ or annoyed that I had to suffer the embarrassment of telling her about this _relationship_ and an edited version of what happened to avoid having her draw the same conclusion your mother did after you left the other day."

Rinoa bit her lip. "_Your mother thought you'd-_"

He gave her a look. "I'm an eighteen-year old boy; of course she's going to assume the worst in any faintly suspicious scenario involving the opposite sex."

She frowned. "_That's sad._" Then something clicked. "-_**Well,**__ we should start working._"

He nodded and proceeded to go over the random History pages. Meanwhile, Rinoa's brain was utterly preoccupied with a new revelation.

"_**Squall, I don't think either of us can handle what happened in August again. If there's something, tell me now.**_

"_**Don't ever bring that up. Just because I said was that I didn't know why she got sick, it doesn't automatically mean I'm hiding something like that.**_

'_Hyne, I don't believe it. I __**can't**__ believe it. After all this time, Nat's rumour... it might actually be true. He might have fathered a child after all._'

Stealing a glance in his direction, she looked into those meticulously-complex azure eyes gazing over each and every section as he was explaining certain facts and concepts. Time seemingly slowed when his gaze made his way to hers for one long second.

'_There's got to be another explanation for this. And hopefully it's that I misinterpreted that entire conversation I overheard or looked far too much into what he said just now. No, that's definitely got to be what happened here. It has to be.'_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments - **Dun, dun, dunnnnn! I'm confusing the hell outta you guys, huh? Don't kill me just yet, you'll have all of your answers in due time. And may I point out that Rinoa isn't one-hundred percent sure on this, so don't rule out the possibility of it still being false. I've only blurred the lines here people.

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbit - **Rinoa's house is actually based off of the structuring of a house I used to live in.


	26. Chapter XXV – The Other Side of the Moon

**Author's Notes - **Ah, I survived the potential barrage of hate mail induced by last chapter's finale. Don't you guys just hate it when I give you so much to ponder and yet there seems to be no definite answers in sight? Hopefully I update this thing regularly enough to not give you all coronaries. Not like I answer much, but you know; it's always nice to know that I'm not going to leave you guys hanging forever.

-Speaking of which, to anyone who may have followed the long-neglected Breaking Free, I'm going to wait until I finish this fic before I go back to that one. I've come to realize that I need to be able to concentrate on one thing at a time because I had to switch my mindset constantly in regards to the characters and situations and it was quite taxing, especially when I'd finish a chapter of one of the stories. I'd be so eager to just continue that story that it took me awhile before I'd want to do the other one, and then the same thing would happen with _that_ fic, and so on. No word of a lie, that's what always happened to me back then.

Anyways, I hope you guys aren't mad with this particular decision. I just want to be able to write the best to my abilities without short-changing something in the process.

Hope you like this lightning-quick chapter; this one's going to be short and sweet. :)

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXV – The Other Side of the Moon**

_-_

_2 am and I'm still awake writing this song,  
If I get it all down on paper it's no longer inside of me threatenin' the life it belongs to,  
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd,  
Cause these words are my diary screamin' out aloud,  
And I know that you'll use them however you want to._

_**-Anna Nalick, Breathe (2am).**_

-

_Sunday, January 9__th__ –_

_It's about 2 am right now and I can't sleep even though my body is basically dead tired and my eyes are threatening to droop just about every other second. My mind won't let me. It's basically going into overdrive and I have to write this down or else I'm going to explode. Tonight, in every sense of the word was a disaster. I'm not talking teaching-wise though, that part was fine. It was everything else that turned into a bust-up._

_Following what Squall said when I came back down to the dinner table, I couldn't look him in the eyes after we exchanged that one last glance. And the worst part about it is that I'm sure he noticed. He must have, he kept on telling me to stop looking at the random crumbs on the table. Hyne, I feel so bad about this. It's like I'm constantly doing flip-flops with everything and I can't seem to stick to my principles no matter how I try. I'm just as bad as those people who are going to judge that rumour based off of the chemistry Squall and I will have. Is it natural to have these kinds of doubts after piecing something together like that? I'm really wondering that right now because I want to know if I'm normal or a despicable human being here. _

_Hyne, I really shouldn't bother, I don't know the first thing about normalcy. I let myself give into peer pressure to fit in, got myself knocked up because I needed emotional support, nearly got into the same kind of trouble because I was acting like an airhead and turned to someone to reinvent myself by taking advantage of his failing grade. Yeah, that just __**screams**__ normal. _

_Well, at least now I can do what I'm best at – being in denial over something. Mulling it over and over again, I don't think it could be true based on a couple of things. If he supposedly had a kid in August, it wouldn't fit into the winter break timeline. There'd be a big discrepancy in dates no matter when in August it could have been. And if the whole thing Raine was mentioning was referring to finding out he just got someone pregnant in August, that'd make even less sense. Mainly because I haven't seen this girl anywhere and if she kept it, I'd assume I would have heard something about it and they wouldn't be making such a big deal about him sleeping with me. Not to mention the dates would make even less sense. _

_From knowing a bunch of pregnancy stuff because of Ivy, the morning sickness stage is usually in the first three months so her due date would have to be sometime in the spring. I might be inferring things here, but if he was going to be a father in a few months, no matter how embarrassing it'd be, I'd think Squall would seem like the type of guy to take responsibility here. Then again, that's my impression here, I could be wrong. Oh great. Now I feel awkward about the 'only girl in your bed' comment. I wish I could take that chestnut back._

_Anyways...even I don't know about all of this, writing it down is making me feel a whole lot better. And after rereading the last few lines, the more I'm convinced that there's got to be a different explanation for this. Maybe he had a close call in August where they thought the girl had gotten pregnant but it wasn't the case or she was and got rid of it? Okay, I should stop making guesses because I obviously don't know the whole picture here. I'm liable to think up something crazier at some point. Or worse, Squall will accidentally come across this and I'll be as good as dead._

_-Hyne, I'm really getting ahead of myself these days. Going back a few hours, when we finished up, it was maybe nine-thirty (my not looking at him kinda slowed things down...a lot) and no word of a lie, I looked out of the window to look outside and I couldn't. It was completely covered in snow. I wasn't sure if it was just the snow sticking to the window or if there was a lot of it in general so I opened the door. It was like a Trabian snowstorm out there so I closed the door and to make a long story short, Squall's sleeping on the couch downstairs. _

_Neither me nor Mom wanted him to walk back home in that weather and at that time of night. Mom couldn't even drive him home because the roads (the driveway too) were really, really bad. If he wasn't too happy about this, then he's an even better actor than I gave him credit for. He seemed calm about it when Mom told him that he'd have to stay here for the night and when she called his mom to let her _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Haphazardly tossing her journal and pen aside, they both fell through the gap between her bed and the wall as Rinoa hurried out of her room and into the adjacent bathroom. Once inside, she immediately went to the left of the small sink and vanity directly in front of the door to lift the toilet seat and puke. When this continued for a few minutes, Rinoa wanted nothing more than to cry. Although the medicine did a wonderful job at suppressing most of the nausea, there were times where episodes like these would pop up out of the blue. Even when she'd been trying to lose weight in the past, she never resorted to throwing up. It was never an option to become bulimic; she hated the feeling of bile climbing up her throat more than anything else.

There was a soft knock at the door. ".._.Rinoa?_"

When it seemed safe to do so, Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows and took a rightwards glance toward the door. The speaker was male.

"_...Squall?_" she weakly called out. "_Yeah..it's me. Don't come in, I'm-_" She interrupted her own sentence to throw up again. "-_not good._"

After a few moments, she feverishly got up. Now her stomach felt tingly, her head light and her legs weak. To summarize, she felt like a wobbly gelatine dessert. When she stabilized herself on the sink's counter, the door opened before she got the chance to have the honours to open it herself. Rinoa quickly reached over to flush the toilet and turned around with a grimace. She didn't want to see anyone her like this.

"_...I told you not to open the door._" she whispered hoarsely. "_What are you even doing up at this hour?_"

Even in the darkness, she could still make out the stern look on his face despite the fact that she couldn't clearly see the rest of his body. "I woke up because I had to use the bathroom. When I went upstairs, I heard some retching and figured it was you."

"_I could have been half-naked for all you knew. Did you think about that?_" she tried arguing. Her voice was making this task difficult though. It was too weak to sound the least bit convincing.

"You could have needed help. I didn't hear anything after you started throwing up to suggest you were okay."

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows quizzically. '_Squall? Caring? Am I dreaming here?_'

"...You don't have to look stunned. I'm not heartless."

"_Sorry._" she mumbled. "_It's just that I wasn't-" _A rough croup-like cough escaped her throat and threw off her overall balance, causing her to stagger a little. _"-expecting that from you._"

"...You seem to be ignoring the fact that I had this a couple of days ago." he said pointedly.

"_You weren't throwing up though._" she countered.

He sighed. "Just because you didn't see it doesn't mean I was immune to it. I had it worse."

"_That's impossible. You didn't look that bad when I came over._"

He shook his head. "By the time you were over, the medicine had kicked in already. It was worse before."

"_Oh._" When she paused her face turned a bright shade of red. She'd been caught using grade-school '_I didn't see it so it doesn't exist_' logic. She quietly thanked Hyne that the lights were off so he wouldn't be able to see her red face. "_I'm-_" Cough. "_-going back to bed. Sorry for worrying y—Oh Hyne-_"

Without any spare time to shut the door to shield him from this horrific scene, Rinoa crouched down and threw up some of what little must have been left in her stomach. Putting herself in the trademark kneeling position by the toilet bowl triggered a knee-jerk gag reflex; she started heaving some more. By the fifth heave, when there was nothing left to spew into the bowl except the lingering spit in her mouth, she looked back. Rinoa couldn't believe her eyes; he was still there after all this time.

"_Why...are you...still here...?_"

"In case if it got worse." he calmly answered.

From the floor, she painfully grimaced as she reflexively swallowed. Her throat was so raw from all the scorching bile that her entire throat felt like a tunnel of fire. Even though she didn't say anything explicit to warrant this, he offered a hand to help her up.

As soon as she flushed the contents of the bowl and closed the toilet lid, Rinoa muttered a feeble '_No, I'm good_' and used the closed lid as leverage to lift herself up rather than his hand. Once she was up on her feet, she feverishly wiped her brow with her left hand and placed the other on the sink's counter for support.

Her entire body felt like it was an empty shell, one where the slightest miscalculated movement would result in a one-way trip to the floor. Keeping the one hand on the counter as a precaution, she carefully turned around, took a step and—all of a sudden, the leg gave out _and she—was _saved from falling face-first by Squall's quick reflexes; he'd looped his arms underneath hers to catch her just in the nick of time. With a soft thud, the side of her head landed near his right shoulder and her arms were limply draped over his own. She quickly tried to stand back up on her own again but he wouldn't allow it. Her face was directly below his now.

"You're not going to be able to walk to your room if you can't even take a step without your knees buckling." he reasoned.

"_So...what do you...suggest we do?_" she inquired from the confines of his grasp, her torso uncomfortably lodged between his chest and arms. "_I don't think...staying in the bathroom is...an option. My mom would...have too many...questions._"

He looked down at her. "Obviously it isn't, I'm probably going to have to carry you to your room."

Rinoa gave him a tired look. "_I'm...not made out of...glass, I can...take care of myself._"

"If I let go, you're going to fall over the moment you take another step."

When her eyelids were threatening to droop again, Rinoa finally conceded. She didn't have the energy to argue anymore. Nor did she feel like doing constant nose dives.

"_Okay...you win. If I'm-_" A yawn weaved itself into her sentence. "_-too heavy to carry...lemme know, kay?_"

After a silent nod on his behalf, he gently lifted her off the ground with ease and carefully tried to manoeuvre out of them out of the bathroom without bumping or scraping any part of her body against the narrow doorframe. A minute was wasted trying to figure the logistics of this task before he set her down and admitted defeat. He couldn't do it. Instead, he instructed her to loop her left arm over his shoulders as he would snake his right arm underneath her right. The first step resulted in another knee buckle debacle. He had to stop her from doing a face-plant again. There'd been too much of a gap between them.

"Just stay close to me. This won't work otherwise."

She looked at him wearily as she reluctantly complied. Rinoa didn't like the fact that the only material barrier between their side-by-side upper bodies was her pyjama tank top. He must have discarded his thick sweater to sleep. "_By any chance...are you...practicing...being nicer...to me? Um, my room's...the one ...straight across._"

He didn't answer her; he merely started helping her walk towards the door. When they were there, Rinoa opened the door with her free hand. Moments later, he carefully led her to the bed where she sat down and immediately turned to leave. He didn't end up leaving though. She'd softly called out to him and he'd stopped and faced her. The moonlight coming from the window illuminated what she couldn't see in the darkness earlier – his expression. By this time, Rinoa realized her mistake.

"_The last thing I said...it was insensitive...wasn't it?_"

"...No, it wasn't." he answered tersely. "I _was_ practicing."

And with that, he left and softly closed the door. The echo of his last words stung, as did the door's clicking sound. Rinoa laid down.

'_Why couldn't I accept his help without questioning it? Hyne, I talk about him not trusting me, it doesn't look like I can quite trust him either._'

'_I wonder, are we more similar than I thought? Are we both untrusting and still biased by each of our own reputations despite our best efforts?_'

Rinoa never answered her own question. She'd already closed her eyes and lulled into an uneasy sleep.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Wow, I updated in a span of two days, it's a new record I tells you! Hope you liked it.

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbit - **The scene where Rinoa falls in the bathroom is a reference to the Sorceress Memorial scene in terms of her positioning when she's caught by Squall. There's also a line directly pulled from the game, try to guess what it is. :)


	27. Chapter XXVI – Snowball Effect

**Author's Notes – **Well, I hope you guys liked that treat of a chapter – speed-wise, that is. While this one's not going to be as speedy, hopefully you'll like it all the same. Hehe, I am so getting closer to Chapter 30 and that 'XXX' title. Yeah, I know I'm sooo immature.

Oh, and I thought I'd clear something up that I'd long forgotten to mention. In this fic, I'm not actually following Squall's original character design as far as his physical appearance goes (don't shoot me, they're only minor changes, nothing radical), it's more like a cross of his KH/KH2 and VIII design. Seeing as he's a little older than his in-game counterpart (he's turning 19 later, not 18 like in the game), I thought his hair would be a tad longer (not as quite as long as his KH design) and that he'd be a little more filled out (not as in fat, as in build). Not to mention he (or Seifer) wouldn't have their gunblade scars because...well, the incident didn't happen.

One last thing, I know that this is going to sound arbitrary right now, but I'm using the age of eighteen for a reference of adulthood, so if you live in a country where it's different, just play along, okay?

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXVI – Snowball Effect**

_-_

_Scars are souvenirs you never lose,  
The past is never far,  
And did you lose yourself somewhere out there?  
Did you get to be a star?  
Don't it make you sad to know that life is more than who we are?_

_**-Goo Goo Dolls, Name.**_

-

'_Time to get up Rinoa, it's probably noon or somewhere around there. Can't keep your guest waiting._'

With a quick yawn and stretch, Rinoa opened her eyes to the beams of bright sunlight filtered through her window. She closed her eyes again; the beams were far too bright because of the snow's reflective quality. Instead, she turned her head the other way and got out of bed while looking at her radio clock. She'd been wrong about the noon assessment. It was closer to seven-thirty.

Once she was up, Rinoa's ears were greeted with the sound of wicked grumbling from her stomach. She ignored it for the moment and walked out of the room and downstairs. Luckily for her, her body had re-cooperated enough during her slumber to descend the stairs without risk of her legs faltering like before, albeit she had to walk at a more lethargic pace.

When she was past the stairs and the dining room soon after, Rinoa couldn't help but venture further to see her fake boyfriend sleeping on the couch instead of going in the kitchen. In spite of herself, the corners of her mouth upturned into a vague semblance of a smile. The same blanket he'd been given last night had drifted off to the ground beside him, leaving his upper body uncovered and making it seem like he was naked. Obviously he wasn't naked, given the he was in a school acquaintance's slash fake girlfriend's house with her mother, but somewhere in her warped mind it seemed a little funny.

Gazing at his sleeping form a little longer, Rinoa noticed a couple of things she hadn't noticed before. They were mostly little things, but interesting things none the less. Before she'd never known that he had a silver stud in his left ear, had relatively long eyelashes or a tiny faded scar below his left eyebrow, right above the lid. There was also a bit of stubble on his face but that in itself wasn't surprising, he _was_ eighteen after all. He probably had to shave every day for all she knew.

Eighteen. That number got her to thinking. Was your perspective on the world any different once you hit the age of legal adulthood? Surely the world had different expectations of you since you could now be held accountable for your own actions, but did your mindset also change? Since she was turning eighteen in a couple of months, Rinoa wondered about this. As far as technical titles went, Squall was man and she was still a girl, but as far as mentalities went, did he think the same way?

Probably not, she concluded. Just yesterday he called himself an eighteen-year old boy. But what truly made a boy into man or a girl into a woman for that matter? Was there some kind of indicator or did you _just_ know? Setting those notions aside for a moment, Rinoa looked over at Squall once more. He didn't seem like a boy to her. He was mentally mature, logical and rational, he'd already exercised certain adult rights such as legally changing his last name and getting that tattoo; and from what she could see, he didn't have a boyish figure, far from it.

All joking aside, Adrienne had been right, their gym class whipped everyone into shape and he wasn't an exception. That's why Rinoa found it so uncomfortable that one day when he'd came out of the laundry room without a shirt on. Although she'd always been comfortable with _that_ side of herself and had no qualms in innocently acknowledging the guys she found physically attractive in her mind, after hearing the rumour the day about her and Squall, she couldn't chance being comfortable that day.

Since she thought that the rumour stood for meaningless carnal desire, if she were to admit to herself that she found him physically attractive, then it would be like proving them right in a way. Now was a different story though. Since they were both playing into their little mind games by pretending to be together, it wouldn't make a difference now. There'd be no harm, no fowl so to speak. Besides, it wasn't like she was going to jump him or anything if she were to find him good-looking; any kind of physical contact was out of the question as far as she was concerned. Neither of them wanted it.

And although she would admit this to no one but herself, she fully-well knew that anything based from pure physical attraction never brought her anything good in the end. Back in Grade 10, when she still had her spunky and outgoing personality, she had a string of boyfriends, all of which she initially found '_hot'_ and incredibly '_drool-worthy'_ – those were the kinds of words she used back then – but none of them lasted for more than two weeks because it'd go nowhere and she'd get bored.

Fast forward towards the middle of Grade 10 and she had yet another relationship based from initial physical attraction, only this time she hadn't gotten bored. This boyfriend stuck around for a couple of months before their break-up became the driving factor for her long stint at Obel Lake.

His name was Rob and he was dark-haired, grey-eyed, playful and feisty seventeen-year old. They were the 'it' couple, the talk of the school, partners in crime and all of that jazz. He showed her that fun could range anywhere from crashing parties, getting drunk and going to places where they shouldn't be going and doing things they shouldn't be doing just to prove that they could. She showed him that she was game and loved every rebellious minute of it. He made her feel like she could take on the world. She smiled when he told her she was the coolest girl he'd ever met. It was the last week in June and about four months into the relationship when he asked if she'd like to go further. She said yes because she knew that they loved each other and that was all that mattered.

After she lost her virginity to him that fateful June night, things weren't any different; they remained the same inseparable duo without any trace of after-the-fact awkwardness. Normally that would have good indicator, but to Rinoa, it drove her nuts.

Weren't you supposed to become closer to the other person once you made love? Wasn't there supposed to be a bond of some sort? A sign? _Anything?_

At first she chalked it up to expecting too much from the movies she'd seen and the novels she read and took some comfort in what once bothered her. Following a few more encounters however, she began to worry again. Although she now knew that it wasn't realistic to see change overnight, shouldn't they have grown in their relationship after a bunch of times instead of staying at an emotional standstill like this?

With the question festering in her mind and plaguing her rationality, she did the unthinkable. She asked why and got an answer. He wasn't the stereotypical jerk and there weren't any '_hateful words_' like she always claimed though; she conjured those truths to make it easier to justify the break-up. It hid the fact that she'd been a foolishly naive girl who he cared for, but didn't love, quite nicely. He had considered them to be nothing more than what her apt metaphor implied – partners in crime. His casual indifference towards her breaking it off almost killed her. She would have preferred yelling and name-calling from him; it would have made more sense. The hateful words that haunted her were the hateful words he _didn't_ say. Everything she thought was real was nothing more than a simple misconception. Back then, she came to the conclusion she couldn't be loved. That was the trigger point.

Rubbing her one eye; Rinoa zoned back into the real world. She grabbed the portion of fallen blanket and securely placed it over Squall's body, tucking him in nice and tight. The action didn't go unnoticed. He cracked open an eye and poked his arms from under the covers. She placed her hands on her hips in mock-annoyance and gave him a semi-serious _look._

"..._You're ruining all of my hard work you know._" she light-heartedly chided.

He rid the sleep from his eyes using his one hand. "...There are better ways to kill me than cutting off my circulation."

Her _look_ turned into smirk. "_If I didn't know any better, I'd say that was a joke._"

He moved his hand away from his face. "...You can't hold me accountable for anything I say in the morning. I'm not awake."

"_Okay._" Her smile sobered a little. "_Um...about last night. I'm really, really sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I'm...I guess I'm not used to people showing unselfish concern like that. I guess I have to learn to trust people too._"

Following a slight grumble, he peeled away the covers and got up to grab his sweater on the far arm of the couch. When he didn't say anything after he tossed it on, Rinoa knew that she wasn't going to get any response to her apology. She let it go.

"_Um, I was going in the kitchen to have something for breakfast,"_ She pointed backwards to the kitchen entranceway behind her for emphasis. _"-you want me to make something for you too? We have different kinds of bread, cereal, fruits, yogurt and a whole bunch of other stuff to eat._"

"Whatever will be fine. It doesn't matter to me."

"_Okay. I'll just be a couple of minutes then._"

Walking into the kitchen, Rinoa made a direct beeline to the middle of the far wall where the sink was and turned on the tap. After washing her hands rigorously under a steady stream of near-scalding water and liquid soap, she made a complete circuit back to the right-side of the entrance where the fridge happened to be and opened its door.

She plucked out a few strawberries, apples and oranges, two containers of vanilla yogurt, a small tub of butter, a carton of orange juice and milk one by one to put on the counter on the left. With everything there, Rinoa closed the door and opened the cupboards above the counter and took out three medium-sized plates, three bowls and two cups. She put all this aside save for the one bowl where she put the fruits in. Pulling out the drawer underneath, she took out two sets of spoons and knives. Opening the cupboard beneath the drawer, she took out an assorted variety of jams, peanut butter, a loaf of bread and two kinds of cereal, somehow managing to fit it all on the counter with the other stuff. Lastly, she took out four slices of bread from the bag and put them in the nearby four-slice toaster.

While she was waiting for them to pop, Rinoa started making trips to the dining room to put everything on the table. When she was on her third trip, bringing the yogurt, jams, butter and peanut butter, Squall gave her a faintly bemused look from where he seated himself at the table. In terms of food, she'd already brought the bowl of fruits and boxes of cereal.

"...You're bringing more?"

"_Yeah._" She put down the stuff to their corresponding places. "_I've got a little bit of everything so you can pick and choose._"

"...What's left to bring?"

"_Um, some toast and the cartons of orange juice and milk._"

He slowly got up from his seat and headed into the kitchen. Rinoa was about to stop him and say that it wasn't necessary and that she had everything under control, but she decided against it and took a seat at the table instead. It might have been only a matter of letting him bring a few things over to the table, but at least it was a start. She was accepting his help. A few seconds later, he came back out with only the cartons.

"_The toast hasn't popped yet?_" she asked.

He set down the cartons in the middle of the table. "No, they did but they were all burnt. I had to throw them out."

She couldn't help but slap herself. "_Ugh, I always forget to move that dial._"

"It doesn't matter, this is fine."

After he sat down, they both started to pick random things to put on their plates. Outside of the occasional clanking noises from the cutlery, it looked like it was going to be a quiet breakfast with no leisurely chit-chat on the side. Not like Rinoa was expecting it from him, but it would have been nice to draw the attention away from the subtle awkwardness lingering in the air.

All of a sudden, the sound of someone coming down the stairs added some much-needed background noise. Needless to say, Rinoa knew it was her mom coming down those steps.

Bundled up in a wine-red turtleneck sweater and black pants, the older woman smiled the both of them once she'd descended the steps. Rinoa felt her temperature spike right then and there. Compared to both Squall and her mom, she felt comparatively naked in her aquamarine tank top and matching pyjama bottoms – with carnation-pink _puppies _on them. The horror.

"Good morning." Julia walked over to the seat closest to Rinoa and looked at both of them with her hand on the chair. "Would either of you mind if I join you?"

Both Squall and Rinoa shook their heads although Rinoa noticed a little hesitation with his. When Rinoa got up from her seat, her mom sat into hers.

"_I'll get you a glass and bowl._"

"Thank you Rinoa."

The instant she went into the kitchen, Rinoa heard her mom's voice and Squall's while she had both the cutlery drawer and upper cupboards open.

'_I guess she wanted to sit to have a little chat with Squall. I should have figured that._' She grabbed the dinnerware and silverware and quickly shut the drawer and cupboard simultaneously with her hip and elbow. '_Better go save him._'

Once she re-entered the room, Rinoa filled her mom's glass with orange juice and her bowl with rice cereal, milk, topped it with two strawberries and dipped the spoon in, passing it all to her. After she politely thanked her again, Julia took a dainty sip of her juice, but it was obvious that her attention wasn't on breakfast. Rinoa knew that the cereal would be mush by the time she'd actually eat it. From the time they'd spent before her mother had come down, Rinoa noticed that Squall ate slowly so it looked like he wasn't going to get out of this one easily; he still had a once-bit apple, half of his cereal left to eat and most of his glass of orange juice left to drink. Just as a precautionary measure, Rinoa poured herself an extra tall glass of orange juice so she'd have a valid excuse to stick around; she'd already finished a little while ago.

"So Squall, are you from Balamb?"

"...I've lived here as far as I can remember but I wasn't born here."

Rinoa had to refrain from making the same '_Oh_' sound her mother had. It didn't seem like something a girlfriend wouldn't know. She made a mental note to herself to tell him that she wasn't native to Balamb later on. In the interim, she took a quiet sip of her orange juice.

"That's an interesting coincidence. We're not originally from Balamb either; we moved here a little while ago from Deling. Have you ever heard of it?"

Rinoa smirked from the sidelines. '_Oh well, I guess she beat me to the punch._'

"...Yes, my father was from there."

Julia nodded in comprehension. "If you don't mind me asking, what's your father's name? There might be a chance that I know him."

Just from the look on his face, Rinoa could tell that he was secretly praying that her mom couldn't find another way to extend the conversation from a couple of terse phrases to a long-drawn affair. She didn't blame him in the slightest, if it were the other way around she-_ Wait a minute_, she thought, _it wouldn't be that bad if his family was asking questions about her like what Mom's doing to Squall. _Following this, she had another thought.

'_Uh oh, I'm going delirious, better take my medicine.' _

Just before she excused herself to go to the kitchen to take her medicine, Squall quietly told her mom his father's name. Rinoa ultimately decided not to leave after seeing her mother's surprised expression. Instead, she tilted her glass to take another mouthful of orange juice.

"This is a surprise. I went to high school with your father. Believe it or not, he was the one who took me to our senior prom."

—_**Phhush! Cough-cough-cough!**_

After she did a spit-take, luckily in no one's direction, and follow-up coughing fit, Rinoa felt a soothing hand patting her back. "-Are you okay Rinoa?"

Cough. Cough. "_I'm..." _Cough. _"...fine...juice went down..._" Cough. Cough. Cough. "._..the...wrong hole._"

"You might want to drink water to help your throat, dear. The orange juice's acid might have aggravated it."

Rinoa nodded. "_I think...I'll do that. Need to take...my medicine...anyway._"

Without further adieu, the teenager excused herself to go into the kitchen. Even after she got her glass of water near the sink and swallowed her medicine, she didn't go back. It would be easier to listen from afar anyway. That way, she couldn't possibly create another scene like the one before nor have some sort of reaction to make her mom doubt something. Sure, Rinoa knew that she was erring on the paranoid right now, but things were complicated enough as it is, they didn't need to be any more so. Besides, she could still step in to save Squall if things got hectic.

_And._..truth be told, she was more than a little curious about what how the conversation would turn out and what more he'd end up revealing. Obeying adults and authority figures in general seemed to be his weak point – it had to have been, there'd be no other explanation for him doing so many weird and unusual things under her authority in the span of a week. Regardless, for someone who was going to be her partner in this ruse against the rumours, she sure didn't know a hell of a lot about him. Only that his birthday is August 23rd, his favourite colour is black, changed his last name to commemorate his grandfather and has a date-like tattoo that she can't decipher for the life of her. Wow, four things. That was just _awesome_.

Grabbing the sole chair in the right corner of the kitchen, Rinoa silently placed it on the side of the kitchen entrance where she wouldn't be seen.

"_So is your mother from Deling too Squall?_"

"_No._" There was reluctant pause. "_She's from Winhill. ...It's where I was born._"

"_Oh, the quiet little village? I've been there once for a vacation before I was married. It was very cosy._"

When there wasn't a reply, Rinoa assumed that he'd nodded instead. As the silent patch grew, the teenager decided that maybe sitting it out in the kitchen was probably not a good idea after all. The one-sided conversation wasn't carrying on without her as freely as she thought it would. She got up from her chair and went back into the dining room.

"...Feeling better?"

That hadn't been her mother who said that. Rinoa had to suppress the urge to look at him blankly like he'd sprouted antlers on his head. While it was obviously not in his nature to say something like that, she knew that he was asking it for the sake of giving a good impression to her mother. And hopefully that said mother wouldn't look too much into this two second pause between his question and her answer.

"_Yeah...I don't think I'll be coughing my brains out today._" she light-heartedly replied with a bit of a smile.

'_Whoa, this is amazing. We're better actors than I thought. I didn't even have to try there. If we can pull something like this at school, this charade will be a piece of cake._'

As she sat down, she stole a glance at him. The look of quiet desperation on his face prompted her to do something.

"_Um, Mom?" _Cough._ "You might want to eat your cereal soon; it looks like it's turning into mush._"

The older woman looked down at her bowl and looked back at her with a light smile, almost child-like in a way.

"You're right, I'd better."

When she dipped her spoon in her bowl, Rinoa got up, picked up her own empty bowl and yogurt container and walked back into the kitchen to put the former in the dishwasher and the latter into the garbage. It didn't come as a surprise to see Squall follow suit a few seconds later with his half-finished bowl of cereal and apple core.

She genuinely smiled at him.

While he was draining the milk in the sink and she was putting her bowl and spoon in the dishwasher nearby, she leaned over to whisper in his ear. "..._How did you like the Q & A period?_"

He set the bowl in the sink for the moment and turned to give her his most serious and smouldering look ever and spoke in an almost inaudible voice. "_...It's a good thing it didn't go any further. I might have found out that my mother was her long-lost relative or something._"

"_You're not very nice._" she lightly chided at whisper-level. "_Besides, your mom doesn't look anything like my mom._"

"Whatever. I wasn't being serious."

Rinoa was about to make another comment akin to the test quip she gave him yesterday about him not thinking, but she decided against it, assuming that he was probably still in _'fake boyfriend'_ mode. She opted to ask for his bowl in the sink instead. He dumped the mush at the bottom of it into the garbage on his left and passed the empty bowl to her. After she put it in, her mom came in the kitchen. She was about to take her bowl too, but Squall beat her to the punch. Rinoa blinked twice within the time it took for him to empty it and put it in the washer himself. All she had to do was close its door.

"Thank you Squall."

Seconds later, her mom walked past both of them and to the opening in the far left corner where stairs leading to the basement were. Once she knew she was out of an earshot, Rinoa gave Squall one of the most bemused looks on the planet.

"_What was all that-" _Cough. _"-for?I could have gotten her bowl myself, more easily too._"

"Assurance." he answered succinctly. "You wanted me to leave a good impression, didn't you?"

"_Yes, but-_"

"-Then that's what I'm trying to do."

"_No, you don't understand. I think you're doing too good of a job already. She's going to be more heart-broken than I'll be when the inevitable happens. I've never had boyfriends who did stuff like this._"

He made a low, derisive scoff. "Wait until she finds out I'm a year older than you before you make that kind of claim."

"_I've already had a boyfriend in the past that was a year older and they were okay with him._" There was small hitch in her breathing afterwards. If she managed to say anything else afterwards it would be an absolute miracle.And why she even said what she said in the first place was a miracle too, for completely different reasons. "_He's a couple of months older than you, actually._"

He still didn't look convinced. "How old were you at the time?"

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. "..._Why are you asking this?_"

"...Just answer the question. I'll tell you then."

"_It was a month before I turned sixteen._"

"There's your answer." he concluded. "Between sixteen and seventeen year olds, there's nearly no difference. There's more of one between seventeen and eighteen."

Before she could stop herself, she hotly countered his claim. "-_That __**isn't**__ true._"

"...What isn't?"

"_Uh-_" Rinoa froze. "_-Nevermind. I misheard you._"

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments - **There, all done! Aren't you guys happy? I hope you are. :)

Happy Friday everyone!

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbit - **If the fic were to follow real calendar dates, it would have started on Saturday, October 2nd, 2004.


	28. Chapter XXVII – Something Left to Lose

**Author's Notes – **Wow, I hit 200 reviews for this fic in the last chapter. That's pretty amazing considering I just hit the 100 marker around mid-late November with **Chapter XV – Rain or Shine**. Something must have clicked with people in the past few months.

Yeah, as some of you might have noticed, at one point I had to change my dividers 'cause didn't allow the dashes anymore and now they must have allowed them again so to put it in short, I wasted a whole lotta time changing them and changing them back. The only plus that came from this is that my older chapters are now the same format as the new ones but God, talk about work!

Regardless of that, I'm sorry for the long wait. School was being a bitch and I had a bad 'bout of writer's block. Hope this is okay though.

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXVII – Something Left to Lose**

_-_

_I'm looking to the sky to save me,  
Looking for a sign of life,  
Looking for something to help me burn out bright,  
I'm looking for a complication,  
Looking cause I'm tired of lying,  
Make my way back home when I learn to fly._

_**-Foo Fighters, Learn To Fly.**_

_-_

_Monday, January 10__th__ –_

_I've been feeling a lot better since Squall left right before noon –not because he left, but because that's when the medicine seemed to kick in. I have to admit that it makes for a funny coincidence though. Anyways, I'll probably be able to go to school tomorrow, which is good because I really don't want to fall behind in Art, but bad because I know I'm going to be gawked at as if I had a Chocobo dancing on my head. ...Hm. You know, I think I'd want to gawk at me if there was a Chocobo dancing on my head. Either that or wonder how it got there._

_-Erm, regardless of the dancing Chocobo, I honestly wonder how it'll be when I show up tomorrow. I have no clue how people will act towards me although I can anticipate that it'll be mostly negative. Who knows though? I should know that people are unpredictable by now. Maybe they'll come to their senses or maybe react on the other end of the spectrum and assume something from the flu-like symptoms and expect me to be...? No, no. I won't go there. Rumours don't get that bad __**that**__ fast. _

_Note to self, don't wear any loose or billowy clothes, buy more form-fitting sweaters (and maybe a couple of nice belts too – new jeans are too expensive), eat healthy (but not too healthy) and avoid saying 'whatever' or glaring daggers at people._

_God...what is it with me today? I can't seem to keep this journal serious no matter what I write about. This can't be a good sign. Hopefully this'll all be out of my system before Squall gets here. I doubt he'll put up with me cracking random jokes and going on a million tangents if it isn't. _

_Ugh. Right now I feel like I'm a hyperactive kid on chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles (because everyone knows that chocolate's a thousand times better than vanilla and sprinkles make them even more awesome) with the attention span of a goldfish and I don't have an outlet to get rid of all this extra energy. I really hope that Squall gets here soon; I've got nothing to do- ...Oh Hyne. That read so, so wrong (I __**really**__ have to start writing my journals in pencil, this is nuts). That's almost as wrong as this morning when I imagined some random person at school telling us, "Aww, isn't that cute? You two are finishing each other's silences!" _

_...Remind me never to get sick again. _

_Wait a second...I think that was the doorbell. Awesome, I'm not going to go insane today! _

_...Three cheers for sanity?_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Following a speedy trip out of her room, past the stairs and living room, Rinoa found her way into the entranceway faster than her mind could fully register the actions. Latching her hand onto the doorknob, she gave it a twist and promptly opened the door. Behind it was a very solemn-looking Squall, his eyes clearly taking advantage of the piercing-blue hue they possessed; Rinoa felt like she was being acupunctured on the spot - or like she was being needled by an invisible porcupine. The instant she saw him at the door, the mentioned hyperactivity in her diary transformed into a metaphorical balloon and one of those equally-figurative acupuncture or porcupine needles popped it.

"...Tough day at school?" she ventured. He didn't bother to answer, opting to simply walk inside. In turn, she took his coat and hung it moments after she shut the door. When he started to head towards the dining room table, she quickly followed suit.

"-Are the comments are getting worse?"

Silence.

"-Seifer's being a pain?"

More silence.

"Someone's-"

He abruptly stopped and turned around. "Please..." he started, "I'm not in the mood for the interrogation. People are stupid, there's nothing more to it."

"-Oh."

After they quietly sat themselves at the dining room, Rinoa cleared her throat. Her tongue felt a little thick, coming to terms with her momentary respite as she looked at him take things out from his backpack. Tomorrow she'd be out in the open like he'd been doing for the past two school days, fending for herself against the tide of lies, deceit and, if she were to listen to him, stupidity. This would become reality and there would be no going back; it wouldn't only be something she wrote about in her journal or an abstract thought anymore. For a second there, Rinoa pondered the possibility that thought of finality could have caused today's fidgeting and not the medicine or the excessive bed rest. As it turned out, she never really reached a conclusion on that one.

"...Squall?"

It took a moment or two for him to tear his attention away from taking things out to acknowledge her.

"...Just so you know, I'm going to be at school tomorrow." she continued with a touch of hesitation. "Um...You nervous about this...this whole thing?"

"...I don't see why I should be." he dully noted. "It can't possibly get worse than it already is."

In spite of her budding nerves, Rinoa found a way to work around that and lightly smile. "So...people are being that stupid?"

He gave her a wary look. "Wait until tomorrow. You'll be able to see for yourself."

"Hm." She flitted through the sizeable stack of work he had before him and noticed something odd. "Squall, did we get any Lit work? All I'm seeing is History stuff."

"No, there wasn't anything. The entire class was spent on presentations."

Rinoa blinked. "_Oh._ I thought Kolp was going to do those later this week."

"She forgot whatever it was she needed for the class so she decided to change the date."

"I see. So did you get to present?"

He chose that moment to crack open a nearby textbook and absentmindedly answered, "_._..Yeah, I did."

"So how did it go?"

"It went..._well_."

She arched an eyebrow. Something about his tone sounded a little _off_.

"You know-" Cough. "-for someone who did '_well_', you don't seem too happy. Did she give you a low grade?"

"No, she gave me 82 percent for the presentation and a 90 for the poems on the evaluation sheet."

Slowly but surely, her smile returned. "I'm surprised you didn't skip town."

When he looked at her with a profoundly quizzical expression, Rinoa knew that he'd forgotten about what he'd said the other day. She decided to enlighten him.

"Don't you remember saying that you'd skip town if she made you present your limerick Squall?"

"...I didn't say anything about my limerick."

"Nice try." she countered. "You said _poems _earlier, not poem. She made you do both, didn't she?"

A faint sigh filled the air prior to his response. "...Unfortunately."

"Okay... so why do you sound so depressed-" Rinoa was going to phrase her question like that until she realized how ironic it sounded. It was the norm for Squall to sound somewhat depressing. Or at least it was in her opinion; she wasn't sure if he talked enough for other people to have their own stance in the matter. "...when you must have done well on both to get that kind of grade? I can't imagine you being embarrassed since they were pretty neutral poems."

"You'd think so but...it wasn't the case."

The dark haired girl fought the urge to go-

"..._Huh?_"

...Nevermind.

He leaned back against his chair and crossed his arms. "I was the only guy who had both poetic forms right."

Rinoa looked at him with a funny expression on her face. "...But wouldn't getting them both right be a good thing?"

He leaned further back in his chair. "Not when the teacher says it was '_just_ _wonderful'_ and loudly adds that '_Ms. Heartilly must have taught you a thing or two'_."

"_Oh. Hyne._" She bit her lip, trying to stifle a few coughs and laughs simultaneously. She only succeeded in preventing the former. "I'm guessing that _someone_ had fun with that comment and that's why you're so grumpy today."

Uncrossing his arms, he used one of them to rub his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "...All I've done is dig us into a deeper hole before this has 'officially' started. We're not going to be able to start off as subtly as I'd like to because people are equating unexpectedly-good poems with personal involvement for some reason."

"Well...um, can you blame them? If I wasn't the one helping you, I'd wonder how someone who's...not the greatest at presenting suddenly kicks ass at reciting poetry. And with that rumour going around and what she told you, I'd probably start wondering if the two things were connected."

"Hm." He started flipping through the pages of the History textbook. "...We'd better get started on this."

She nodded and moved her chair from the right side of the table near his on the end so she wouldn't be looking at the book sideways. Now sitting on his immediate right, she glanced over in his direction. Although the book in front of them seemed to be perfectly poised to start the lesson on...whatever, Squall didn't seem like he was ready to start. He was sporting a distant look and his hand was resting beside the book, perfectly idle. His mind must have been still caught up on something, presumably on what was going to happen tomorrow. Rinoa delicately placed her left hand over his right, prompting him to take notice and make eye contact. He was warm to the touch.

"Don't worry about it, this'll turn out fine." she reassured. He didn't say anything. "You're a good actor and we'll have good chemistry, I just know it from what we managed to do yesterday. Well... I also know that we won't act exactly like we did that day because of the different people but...I have a feeling that we'll fool them all and maybe have fun in the process."

He slipped his hand out from under hers. "...You're making this sound like a game."

"It doesn't hurt to be optimistic sometimes, no matter how hard it is."

He said an abrupt '_whatever_' and turned his attention towards the book. "...She started a new chapter on Lunar Cry."

"Um, are you sure it's on Lunar Cry? I vaguely remember getting some independent assignment back with a whole bunch of **X**'s on it before the break and I think it had to do with that."

"No, that paper was on Centran civilization and it was in mid-November."

"**Oh.** I guess I was mistaken about that. Go ahead."

Pointing at an artistic rendering of a cluster of monsters which seemed to be falling from the moon, Squall was about to say something, only to be cut short by the distracting sound of someone noisily inserting keys into the front door's lock. He craned his neck backwards to look.

"Squall, it's okay. That's just my mom coming home from doing groceries. I told her not to bother you today."

He stopped craning his neck and looked at her with a semi-unsettled look on his face. He leaned closer to her as if he was going in for a kiss or to say something at whisper-level. Obviously, he did the latter. "..._I doubt your mother's a man._"

Rinoa's eyes widened at an alarming rate. What he said could have only meant one thing.

"Rinoa, who is this boy?"

Both teenagers simultaneously turned their heads to see the older man clad in a long coat with a briefcase in hand.

'..._Oh crap._'

Her father was home from his business trip – far earlier than expected.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Cough. "Dad, this is-" Cough. "-Squall. He's helping me keep up in school because I'm sick."

Her father set down his case and gave Squall the once-over. "Is he the same person your mother was mentioning?"

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. "Err...you two talked?"

"Yes Rinoa, we talked last night when I called to say that I was going to come home the next day. She said that you _fell_ ill when you went to bring homework last Thursday."

The accusatory glance he fleetingly gave her and Squall purposely implied that he knew more than he was verbally admitting. That 'more' obviously alluding to something that would make passing Squall off as a mere homework explainer nigh impossible. When his gaze wavered back over to her, Rinoa rubbed her eyes and made no effort to withhold a small grimace. The only way she could possibly try to get Squall out of the potential grilling wasn't going to pretty and neither was the situation if she didn't do anything. Still, Rinoa felt it was her responsibility for getting him off the hook even if it meant she was going to get the brunt of it. He didn't deserve all this flak for something that she did.

Just as she was about to open her mouth, he got up from his chair and beat her to the punch. For a moment, Rinoa caught his eye and looked at him as if he was out of his tree. He brushed it off and pushed the chair behind him.

"Sir, I take full responsibility for getting Rinoa sick."

Whereas the words coming out of her mouth remained non-existent, her mind screamed and her eyes spoke volumes. And yet he would not hear any of this. From the close proximity she was sitting at, it was like watching a car crash unfold right in front of her. She couldn't look away, too frozen to do anything other than stare.

Her father crossed his arms - a death sentence in itself. "I go away for one week and find out that my daughter's fallen ill from a kiss that shouldn't have happened by any stretch of the imagination as far as I'm concerned. How do you suppose I feel right now?"

"Unimpressed and probably outraged." he replied, only a minute flicker of weakness in the coolness of his facade. "It was a mistake on my part and it shouldn't have happened in the first place."

Still sitting in her chair, Rinoa's chest seized up momentarily. She was almost certain that Squall had chosen those specific words so her and her father could easily make different interpretations of what he meant. Rinoa almost wanted to self-depreciatingly laugh at the irony. For someone who was reputed for not talking much, he sure had a way with the words he did say. Or at least his fake boyfriend persona did.

Her father narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "My wife told me what Rinoa had done to get herself sick. Why are you trying to give me the impression that you initiated this situation? Or was there something else the both of you would like to tell me?"

Rinoa nearly jumped out of her seat. "_Dad!_" The indignant and pitchy tone she used triggered a small slew of coughs. It was a couple of seconds before she was able to follow up. "Nothing happened outside that one thing. Please don't blow it out of proportion-"

"-_Rinoa,_" Squall gently placed his left hand on her shoulder to calm her down. Unbeknownst to her father, she subtly flinched at his touch right before she 'calmed' enough to properly sit again. "-if your father's not comfortable about the idea of you seeing someone, maybe we shouldn't continue with this."

At that moment, the teenager tilted her head rightward and luckily managed to lock eyes with him to fortify the charade. When she sensed a certain kind of quiet desperation emitting from his fleeting stare, Rinoa had to avoid losing herself within his nuanced performance by slowly shifting her gaze back at her father. They played musical stares; the older man's sight rested on Squall's instead of his daughter's when she looked his way. He furrowed his brow and his arms remained firmly crossed.

"You seem like a respectable boy, but there's something that doesn't register properly." he admitted. "How old are you?"

Pointless to stall the inevitable, Squall wasted no time in answering. "...I turn nineteen in August."

The older man's posture stiffened a little and his frown became more prominent.

"What's your reason behind staying an extra year in school then?"

Rinoa piped up at this question. "Dad, that's none of your business, you can't ask him that."

Her father ignored her protest and kept a firm eye on Squall. She looked at him too and noticed a small twitch near the corner of his mouth. To her surprise, he actually answered the insensitive question and told him that the same reason he'd told her in the library a week ago.

"Hm...Fair enough." The way he paused made it seem like he was disappointed that the answer he'd been given offered no valid reason to dismiss him. "So why are you interested in my daughter?"

Rinoa clenched her fists into little balls and finally got up from her chair; she had enough of this. Although they weren't fighting in the name of a real relationship, it was the principle of the matter that irritated her.

"Now you're just fishing for a reason to make it easier to not give Squall a chance. Can't you just trust my judgement? I'm not a child anymore; I should be able to make my own decisions. Mom's okay with this, why can't you be?"

"I can't because you still don't make the wisest choices, older or not." he firmly answered. "That is why I still feel the need to do this."

The teenager furrowed her brows. As much as she didn't want to pick this fight in front of Squall, the words on her mind had to be said regardless. "I know that I'm not the best behaved daughter in the world, but I don't see how you can justify saying that."

"I know about the _other_ doctor's appointment you had in November young lady." he countered. "And if you don't think that justifies my reasoning, I'd like to see your counter-argument."

Her chest froze, breath hitched and words failed her. As vague as his wording about the incident might have been, she felt vulnerable and exposed to everyone in the room. Her hands started to quake and the basic ability to keep them into ball-like fists began to escape her.

"...I'm not that person anymore." she gritted, her voice threatening to bottom out. To hell with the secrets, she thought. Her father practically ousted her own deep secret in front of a quasi-stranger, why continue with the subtlety? It wasn't like he was going to appreciate the formality. "I've changed. He's...helping me not be that person anymore."

She was tempted to turn away and retreat to the confines of her bedroom, but she didn't. She didn't because she heard a couple of clicking noises near the entranceway door; this time it _was_ her mother coming in with grocery bags. Bags she dropped the very instant she saw the three of them near the dining room table.

Still clad in her snow-encrusted boots and thick crimson coat, Julia walked over to the unfolding scene in question and sighed. "Fury Caraway, I hope this isn't what it looks like."

The older man turned his head in her direction. "Julia, I was merely-"

"-No buts Fury. You do this to every time Rinoa brings someone home. I'm surprised that she even bothers to tell us anything anymore with the way you act." Julia stopped and looked towards the pair of teenagers. "Rinoa, take Squall downstairs with the homework. I have to talk with your father in private."

With a furtive nod, Rinoa gathered some books and quietly led Squall into the kitchen where the stairs leading to the basement were in the far left corner. Once they were down there and shielded from all of the noise coming from upstairs, Rinoa walked directly to the reclining chair in the far right corner of the basement, slumped herself down on it and haphazardly dumped all of the work on floor with a resounding clatter, her mind in complete disarray. Squall didn't follow her to the other end of the room.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"I'm really sorry about the way my dad treated you Squall."

These were the first words spoken in over ten minutes of re-cooperative silence. Squall was still leaning against the wall and Rinoa was still slumped in the reclining chair, a fair distance separating them. The latter's words hadn't prompted the former look up instead of eying the floor like she'd hoped. In the wake of his prolonged muteness, she continued.

"If there's any way I can make it up to you...I'll..." Rinoa let out a sigh, not bothering to finish that sentence. This line of talking was obviously going nowhere with him. "...You must think I'm disgusting."

He slowly looked up and their eyes met from across the room. "...It's not my place to say anything. Everyone has skeletons in their closet, some more than others."

"...Even you?"

Squall gave her a weird look. "...Even me what?"

"...Skeletons, I mean." she meekly clarified. "Do you...choose not to judge people because you have skeletons in your closet too?"

"I choose not to judge because it's pointless to concern myself about other people's problems." he answered. "Not because I may or may not have skeletons in my closet."

"Hm." She momentarily paused. "So, I...take it that you figured it out?"

"Depends. _Is_ it going to complicate this charade a few months along the line?"

Rinoa slowly let her head dip. He'd passed the test she'd set up, one she wanted him to fail miserably, one she wanted him to say, '_Rinoa, how the hell am I supposed to know what your father was talking about?_' or something to that effect, maybe peppered with a _'whatever'_ or two. But _no_, he just _had_ to be perceptive on this occasion.

"No. I'd never put you in this situation if that was the case." Once more, she loudly sighed. "...It had only lasted for a couple of weeks." Looking back up, her mouth naturally settled into a frown. "...Please don't tell anyone Squall. I've...had to live with this for a little while and...I don't think I could handle it if someone else were to know."

He stopped leaning against the wall and uncrossed his arms, opting to awkwardly put them at his sides. "...I won't say anything."

"Thank you." The frown she had on lessened into a relatively neutral expression. "Um, if you didn't feel comfortable staying here, with my parents and all...you can leave if you want to." Rinoa leaned over to pick up some of the pages she'd previously discarded and put it on her lap. "I'll be fine to do my work on my own today."

To her surprise, he didn't take her up on her offer to leave, instead he walked over and took up a seat near the recliner she been sitting in and grabbed the History textbook she hadn't picked up and flipped through the pages.

"...I think it'd be safer for me to stay down here." he noted between page turns. "I heard some loud noises so I assume they're still arguing. Getting caught in the middle of that wouldn't be wise."

"Fair enough. So...what's all this Lunar Cry stuff about?"

"Monsters." he said flatly. "Thousands of them falling from the moon and ruining civilizations in the process."

"Oh. That's kinda neat."

While her words feigned interest, her thoughts couldn't be anymore genuine. '_Thank you for staying Squall. I really appreciate it._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Yeah, I know it's been practically month since I last updated. Things kept popping up as I've said and my mind was stumped during the Caraway scene. Seriously stumped. So, I really apologize if this turned out really crummy.

On an even crummier note, I won't be able to update until late April, early May 'cause I'm now in the lovely season of exams. Fun, isn't it? Oh well. If I can scrap a moment or two for myself between studying and the actual exam itself, I'll be sure to devote it towards this. It's like the only thing I do for fun anymore. Well, that and watch my season box sets of House. House is sooo cool. ...But that's another story altogether.

Anyways, I hope this'll tide you guys over in the meantime,

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbits - **The part where Rinoa says that she thinks she got a paper about Lunar Cry with **X**'s on it is a reference to Locked Inside where Squall and Rinoa were doing homework on Lunar Cry and started correcting each other's in sheer boredom. As you can undoubtedly guess, Rinoa's had a bunch of **X**'s on hers.

Oh and yes, the part about Rinoa writing about buying belts was a crack at in-game Squall. Of course she's unaware about that though.


	29. Chapter XXVIII – Practice Makes Imperfec

**Author's Note – **Well, I hope the wait wasn't **too** bad, not comparative to the wait for the last chapter, I hope. Anywho, without further adieu, here's Chapter 28. Hope you like. It's got the moment you've all been waiting for (or so I assume) – the charade at school! Yay! ;)

On a somewhat random note, if you haven't already, go check out the poll in my profile. It's about Reinventing Me and I'm curious to see the input on that one. I have no idea what a lot of people's thoughts are in regards to the question I asked on there so I thought it'd be neat to see what's what.

Hehe, the song I'm using for this chapter isn't the usual alt-rock stuff I normally put in, but it fits so perfectly that I can't help but laugh. It didn't even hit me until I heard it on the radio. See if you remember this one.

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXVIII – Practice Makes Imperfect**

_-_

_Let's give them something to talk about baby,  
A little mystery to figure out,  
Let's give them something to talk about,  
How about love?_

_**-Bonnie Raitt, Something To Talk About.**_

_-_

'_Ten more minutes and the bus is going to be in front of the Garden...they'll be looking at me, but I'm going to be fine. I won't let them get to-'_

"Hey Rin."

"Gah!" Rinoa nearly skyrocketed into the next seat in front of her. ...So much for being fine.

"Whoa, calm down. It's only me."

Managing a sheepish grin, the raven-haired teenager looked at her temporary seat buddy. "Sorry Adrienne...I'm still not completely one-hundred percent." she conjured. "Being cooped up in my room for nearly a week screwed me up pretty badly. I've got to get used to noise again."

The other teenager offered her a polite smile. "I think being at school would have screwed you up more. Things kept on getting weirder and weirder without you here."

'_And here I thought I had ten measly minutes of peace before things would start to get hairy. I suppose I was a little generous with that guess. Well, no turning back now._'

"...Oh. How so?"

Adrienne hastily scanned their surroundings. Once she seemed to be satisfied with the current situation, she elaborated on what she meant earlier. "Well... after the snow day, I noticed that Nat was suddenly in a really crabby mood but when Squall told the teacher that you were sick, there was like this odd glint in her eyes."

When there was a convenient pause in her story, Rinoa figured it was her cue to say something. The other teenager was probably looking for a reason for Nat's crabbiness before continuing. And so she did. After doing a quick survey of the area for herself, that is.

"Yeah, about that...Um, she sent me an e-mail on Thursday about the 'misunderstanding' and I politely replied to it by saying that I still couldn't be friends with them because of how they treated Ivy and the gossiping. She wrote this really nasty letter back to me so maybe that's why she was acting the way you said on Friday."

Adrienne had this uneasy look on her face. "...I should have figured that much." she sighed. "Nat always gets this way whenever she's really upset. Although she'd never admit it, she liked having you around."

Rinoa grimaced. Partially in the name of the act, partially because of the innocent guilt trip she was going to have to ignore and partially due to the fact that playing stupid was getting annoying. "So I take it that there was more after the glint thing."

"...Er-yeah. A lot more. Well, it's nothing you haven't heard before but, I'm almost positive that Nat spread that 'misunderstanding' as a rumour to a lot of people to spite you."

"_Oh._" Rinoa started sombrely, "...That doesn't surprise me one bit."

Adrienne frowned. "I'm really sorry about not being able to do anything about it Rin. It's just that I'm kinda stuck between a rock and a-"

"-It's not your fault Adrienne. Please don't beat yourself up over it." she reasoned before concluding with _le_ _pièce de résistance, _sure to coax the 'rest' of the story out of her. "I'm sure it'll probably blow over soon."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that Rin."

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows in 'confusion'. "...Please don't tell me she's really got them convinced."

"Actually, it's more like the other way around. Squall's been acting weird enough in the past two school days to make people wonder about what she said."

The teenager had to make a modest effort not to crack a smile right now. At the moment, she couldn't help but picture Squall doing totally random and un-Squall-like things when Adrienne said that for some reason. On the other hand, there was another part of her mind that genuinely wanted to know what 'weird enough' constituted in her books, even though she was almost positive that she'd been referring to picking up her homework and doing well at reciting poems. Either way, Rinoa knew that she wouldn't get the answers she sought unless if she did what was expected of someone in her situation – ask.

"Weird as in...?"

"Well, outside of him bringing your homework, which you already know about, he did really awesome when he presented his poems even though he was the first one up yesterday. All in all, I'd say that he did better than all of the guys and maybe three-quarters of the girls-"

Rinoa's eyes widened. "._..He never told me that._"

Adrienne blinked. "What was that Rinoa? I didn't catch what you said."

"Oh, it was nothing." she mumbled, catching her fumble. "Go on."

"Sure. Anyways, he did so well that Kolp was practically gushing and ended up saying something like '_Ms. Heartilly must have taught you a thing or two_'. Nearly all of the class started giving him weird looks until _someone_ from the back yelled, '_Most guys write poems to get laid, not the other way around._' A lot of them started snickering then. But the weirdest thing was that Squall didn't glare at that person or at anyone, he just took his seat without a word."

Cough. "...That does sound strange."

'_What I find strange is that you had this kind of pained squint when you switched Seifer with the word someone. But of course I can't ask about that because this is about me and not you.' _Rinoa would have sighed now, but she knew better. _'At least I'm all 'caught up' events-wise so I'm done playing dumb for now._'

"...So?"

"So what?"

Adrienne had this smirk on her face when she consciously nudged her left arm. "How was it having _him_ as a temporary tutor?"

"The same as it was when I was tutoring him ...only the other way around."

Her smirk grew. "So did he teach _you_ how to write kick-ass poems?"

Rinoa couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Ha, ha. Very funny."

"Well, you got to admit that you must be one hell of a teacher to make a presentation from Squall Leonhart bearable, let alone good. Even Ivy couldn't help Paul with his poems and she's supposed to be the miracle worker." Adrienne paused for a millisecond. "...Are you _blushing_?"

She raised her right hand to feel her cheek, it felt warm. "...No."

"Your face says otherwise Rin."

"I'm still a little sick Adrienne; it's probably a given that I'm going to be a little red in the face."

Fully aware and taking advantage of the fact that Squall didn't take this bus, the brunette continued on with this line of questioning.

"Relax, I'm not accusing you of anything here. I don't believe a word of what Nat's rumour, I'm just curious about this whole thing because I can't imagine it being easy to get through to that guy for something like that."

Rinoa noticed that her muscles didn't seem as tense anymore. '_She believes you Rinoa; you can admit stuff people would expect you to say about being his tutor._'

"No, he's not really that bad to teach for Lit, he listens pretty well."

Adrienne looked at her incredulously. "_—Really?_"

The teenager nodded. "Yeah. I might have helped with that haiku but that limerick was all his. Well...I had him do a second revision of it and that's what he came up with without my help."

"Is that a swell of teacher-like pride I see there?" her friend joshed.

Rinoa shifted her eyes. "Er...no."

Adrienne softly chuckled. "You know, I did happen to know why you were red before. You're embarrassed of being told that you're a good teacher to him."

She sighed. "Well...can you blame me? If that rumour's going around, being a 'good teacher' to him is obviously going to stir up some more ideas - ones that probably won't be nice."

If Rinoa would have had the luxury to frown, she would have. '..._Oh, that is so going to blow up in my face when we start looking like a couple. Sorry Adrienne._'

The other girl nodded in comprehension. "I see what you mean." she commented before leaning closer to whisper something in her ear. "._..So how did you get him to get better at presenting? You've got to admit that it had to be your doing there Rin._"

"._..Guilty as charged._" she reluctantly whispered. "_Don't tell anyone this but..."_

"..._But what?_"

Rinoa turned towards the window to inhale and exhale deeply before turning back to tell her. "_...I got him used to presenting things he'd be uncomfortable with by having him describe random doodles I drew. And somehow we ended up arguing about whether or not one of my drawings was a Cactuar or a regular cactus._"

At this point, the teenager was almost certain that Adrienne was doing her best not to laugh. It was a courtesy she really, _**really**_ appreciated. "Okay, I, um, am not going to touch that one with a ten foot pole. Anyways, it's nice having you back Rinoa. I'll see you at break or at second period."

After she finished her sentence, Rinoa realized that the bus had finally arrived at their destination when she took a glance out of the window. And oh, what an odious sight it was to see.

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Following a rather uneventful Art class – well, uneventful save for some random and possibly unrelated whisperings – fate seemed to have balance in mind. She bumped into Seifer after what felt like her first step out of that classroom. Rinoa wasn't sure of what to make of the expression on his face however. At a first glance, he seemed glad to see her, but in the next, she could have sworn he gave her a _look_. The glad expression overpowered the _look_ in the end though.

"Decided to extend your weekend without me Heartilly?"

Rinoa smirked when she leaned against the wall on the door's left and crossed her own arms. No matter how hard it was to believe that he said all of those things while she was gone, she couldn't deny him the usual banter.

"There was no deciding Seifer, it just happened. Trust me, I would have told you if I'd found a foolproof way to skip school scot-free. Skipping school by yourself is never fun. Oh, and for the record, my last name's Caraway-Heartilly."

"Aah, you've got a point there. And just for the record, I don't care about the record. That's too long for my name-calling purposes." Now he was leaning against the same wall, directly on her left. "So...do you still feel like shit from this flu thing?"

"No, I'm okay now." Rinoa inwardly cringed. It looked like she was going to have to dive deep into the ocean of playing stupid and the water felt like it was going to be full of icky seaweed. Before she started, Rinoa turned to look at him. "I hope you don't mind but, I'm curious. Where did you happen to hear about that? Did the teacher say something during roll call?"

He folded his arms and looked her square in the eye. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you."

She shook her head. "Try me Seifer. I've been hearing weird things all morning so I doubt it'll sound that farfetched."

"It was Leonhart who said something." He paused for a second and noticed the lack of change in her expression. "...You weren't kidding about not being surprised, were you?"

"Nope." she said matter-of-factly. "Being told that sounds pretty tame when I've been hearing people claim that I've slept with him."

When this phrase achieved to raise one of Seifer's eyebrows, Rinoa calmly looked away, drew a long breath and slowly exhaled. Glancing back at him, her eyelids felt heavy in his presence. This was the moment she'd been waiting for and dreading for the longest time now.

"...You can't tell me that it's news to you Seifer." She faltered for a split-second. "I've heard you say things about it from Adrienne. Not anything nice either."

"I don't know what she told you but those jokes weren't directed at you. I was only teasing Leonhart to-"

"—_To_ see if they were true?" Rinoa interjected, her willpower faltering yet again.

"Actually, I was going to say to bother him about something that _can't_ possibly be true." he corrected. "Anyone who isn't blind or as dumb as a mule can see that. Now if the rumour was about him f-"

"Seifer...please don't say anymore." she implored. "Someone's liable to mishear you and hold it against Squall. Besides, I've already heard someone joke about him and textbooks anyway."

"Heh. I was going to say something about him getting a brain transplant but I think I like that idea better. It sounds _so much_ sexier." Just then, Seifer's eyes drifted towards something behind her. "Hey Leonhart, Heartilly tells me you get off on textbooks, is that true?"

Rinoa looked the other way to see the other teenager approaching them from the other side of the hallway. He had the faint beginnings of a bemused look on his face.

"—I didn't say that!" she indignantly yelped.

A sly grin on the blond's face was starting to form as he moved away from the wall. "..._Sure _you didn't_._"

Squall was about to pass the both of them wordlessly when Seifer reiterated his question to him. To everyone's surprise, he actually stopped. Rinoa thanked Hyne that the blond couldn't notice that her heart was going a thousand miles an hour as she stood still. She and Squall exchanged the briefest of glances before he said anything. The charge of his gaze felt like lightning coursing through her brain all the way to her toes; she instantly felt self-conscious about how she'd been carrying on the act up until now. Her mind came to the conclusion that there was definite room for improvement. He shifted his sights towards Seifer with that bemused look finally developed on his face.

"...And why am I even bothering to humour you exactly? One rumour about me getting involved with something or someone is enough." Right after, he turned to look at her. "Speaking of which, you're sitting on my left according to the seating plan. ...Try not to draw attention to that."

He left for the classroom further down the hall after Rinoa gave him a curt nod. Now it was Seifer's turn to look at her, albeit the look in Seifer's eyes was worlds different than Squall's. Mainly because she doubted Squall would ever look like he was bursting at the seams. They started walking towards the classroom once Squall had already gone inside the class.

"...What did you _**do**_ to him?" he said in a low tone, "That's the first time he's voluntarily acknowledged your existence."

"...What did_** I **_do to him?" she ironically repeated, "Well let's see. I taught him about haikus and limericks, helped him on his presentation skills when I was over at his house. And oh yeah, I flashed him repeatedly like you said because it seemed like a good way to keep his attention during all of that."

In that instant afterwards, Rinoa never realized how green Seifer's eyes were, nor did she realize how big they could get.

"I was _kidding_ Seifer."

The blond couldn't but smirk afterwards. "You know, for someone who's worried of people taking things the wrong way, I'm surprised you made that joke. Wouldn't that be the kind of thing people would 'hold against' you?"

Rinoa absentmindedly rubbed her eyes. '..._Rinoa you've got to get better at this._'

"Hyne, I'm going to be absolutely boring in the next couple of weeks if this rumour won't let me joke around." she tried to josh, tried being the key word seeing as it didn't quite work.

"So...you're going to be boring because you can't joke about _him_? No offence, but he's already a joke, no need to point that out."

—_See? _Didn't work.

"No, that's not what I meant, I...nevermind. You're right, that didn't make sense. My head must still be a little foggy from the flu."

"Well, you'd better hope that the fog's going to go away soon. You're the only one who's left to present poems and I wouldn't be surprised if Kolp's got insanely high expectations for you. After all, you _did _teach Leonhart a thing or two."

Right after that comment, Rinoa play-swatted him. "Seifer, you _so_ took that out of context! This is Kolp we're talking about here; she's obviously referring to the poems."

"Yeah, but that wouldn't be any fun, now would it?" he quipped.

"You're right, it wouldn't be any fun, but I'd make a lot more sense. I mean, she _is_ a nun whacking love-struck teenagers with a wooden ruler in her spare time right?"

"Whoa, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that was me talking there." He smirked a little. "You know, I'm starting to regret the fact that this rumour hadn't come up sooner. You're a lot funnier and vocal when you're trying to prove that thing wrong. Hell, you're practically acting like me in a skirt."

She play-swatted him again, faint beginnings of her own smile starting to form. "...I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. You in a skirt is wrong on so many levels."

And with that, she opened the door to the classroom. Seifer hadn't bothered to reply to what was last said. It was probably for the better that way.

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Once she was inside and seated in the classroom, Rinoa had the luck to be sitting in the very back of the class with Squall instead of the front like she initially feared. Even better, she was sitting in the far left corner with no one was on her left. With roughly half the class at their seats, most of them occupied in the front, Rinoa chanced whispering something to him by covertly doing so while she was taking out her things for class.

"_Things get worse for you?_" she mouthed while digging through her bag.

When Squall didn't respond to this, Rinoa figured that it was probably silly of her to expect him to talk, or in this case, whisper to her while people where still around. What she didn't figure was gentle prodding mid-thigh. More specifically, it was from a folded, sprig-like piece of paper. She swiftly took the said paper and stowed it in the binder she'd just plucked out of her bag. Ever so carefully, she unfurled it between the lined pages so it'd be a little more inconspicuous, making seem as if the thing was no more than a ripped page in there. The note was written a nearly-illegible scrawl, discernable only by squinting.

'_Geez Squall, most people's writing gets sloppy and bigger whenever they're in a rush, not impossibly tiny. I need one of those ridiculously big magnifying glasses._'

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_No one in Calculus can afford to look away from the board, so no, it didn't get worse yet – wait until you present. Don't reply to or acknowledge this note after you've read it._

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Quietly crumpling up the paper, she walked over to the doorway and tossed it in a nearby garbage can. Just then, a cluster of students inconveniently filtered into the room, barring her path back. Some of their gazes were fleetingly accusatory, others neutral and about three were reassuring. Rinoa felt apprehensive but okay in general. They aren't out to single you out, she thought to herself, the world doesn't revolve around this anyway—

A booming voice cut through the idle chit-chat lingering in the air. "Miss Caraway-Heartilly, could I see you for a moment?"

Rinoa turned towards the source of the noise. What would Kolp want from her, she mused. Then she mused about how unwieldy her last name was to say and that maybe Seifer was on to something there. Nevertheless, she went up to her desk at the front of the classroom. The teacher had a small sheaf of papers in front of her.

"As I'm sure Mr. Leonhart told you, the oral presentations for the poems have been moved up. I'll be expecting you to do so sometime in class so whenever you choose to do so is fine with me. Here are the poems you handed in-" She handed her the small sheaf. "The grades for the poems will be on the evaluation page for the presentation."

Briefly flitting through them, Rinoa nodded. "Could I do them before the lesson's started? I know them pretty well, so it won't take time to memorize them."

"Yes, that's fine."

With another curt nod, Rinoa turned on her heel and went back to her seat. She was slightly surprised that the teacher hadn't mentioned Squall's presentation at all; then again, maybe she was saving it for her actual presentation.

Moments later, Rinoa barely registered the feel of the chair's hard plastic surface once she sat down at her seat, only the sight of Squall looking at her with an odd look on his face.

She furrowed her brows. "...Um, why are you looking at me like that? I didn't forget to breathe, did I?"

"No. Your face...it's green."

The teenager grimaced. "Your face would be green too if you had to present in front of _this_ kind of crowd. I can't help but picture worst-case scenarios."

'_In the past two minutes, I've come to learn that confidence is a fickle thing. And that I have none whatsoever._'

"If you only picture worst-case scenarios, you're only setting yourself up for them to happen."

"Why are you trying to—" Then it clicked. "**Oh. **Nevermind. _Gotcha_."

When she'd winked as she was saying '_Gotcha_', he rolled his eyes. "Don't do that...ever again."

Rinoa's mumbled '_okay, okay_' was easily drowned out by the shrill sound of the morning bell but she was sure he got the idea all the same. When roll call was being rattled off at break-neck speed, the teenager gulped. Everything was happening so much faster than she'd anticipated. She turned towards Squall and quickly mouthed something to him.

"_Would you mind it if I kept eye contact with you?_" she whispered, "_It'll make it easier for me to present that way._"

He shrugged. "_Doesn't matter._"

"_Thanks._"

And with that, she glanced over her poems, making sure that she knew them well enough to recite them from memory. A couple of moments later, Rinoa got up from her seat once the attendance sheet was sent to the office. The first step she took after getting up from her seat felt like her last; the others didn't register under the weight of the numerous stares in her direction. Rinoa briefly wondered if her body was slowly going numb since nothing seemed to be properly registering anymore.

Once she was at the front of the class, she took a deep breath and looked for a particular set of greyish-blue eyes among the masses. She spotted them fairly quickly, their owner looking utterly bored but attentive by obligation. She took another deep breath, trying to keep her nerves at bay. Focusing on only his eyes, all of the others seemingly faded into obscurity. She started right then in a clear and resonant tone, no quivering to be heard.

"_Waiting on a branch, the birds who will take flight wait, for just the right time._"

She paused for a moment, waiting for Squall's reaction. Although she'd written this prior to the decision they'd make about faking a relationship, Rinoa couldn't help but see the irony in the revised haiku. She saw a slight shift in his posture but nothing more, nothing definitive. She took another breath. This time she couldn't keep her gaze solely on Squall, the sight of others slowly trickled into the view. To see so many students actually pay attention was almost an obscene thought. She didn't think that her haiku was _that_ good to warrant that kind of attention, then again, nothing was to be certain with this audience.

'_Just get it over with Rinoa._' her mind chastised. And so she did.

"_In the Garden, we all go to class, studying math and hoping to pass, I do all of my work, and I try not to smirk—"_ In spite of the limerick's line, she lightly smirked. _"-When the instructor falls on his-" _She paused for effect. _"-glass._"

When Rinoa heard a couple of chuckles after she recited the last line, she sighed in relief. Her legs felt like jelly but the worst was over. All she had to do was wait for the final verdict from the instructor. The teenager looked in her direction and the teacher in question seemed to be in the process of scribbling something up for her on her desk. Once the older woman locked eyes with her, she quietly handed her the evaluation sheet without any tagalong comments. Rinoa was surprised. And not just because of that.

"Um, Instructor Kolp?" Rinoa placed the page back on the teacher's desk. "Could you tell me what that says down there? I can't read any of that. The writing's a little too squiggly."

The teacher gave her an odd look. "Are you feeling alright? I didn't use cursive for the evaluation sheets."

The teenager blinked hard. This was certainly news to her. "I think it might just be nerves."

"Hm. Take your seat for now and if it doesn't get any better, you can go to the infirmary."

"Okay."

For the third time in this class, an action didn't fully register in Rinoa's mind.

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Rinoa cracked her eyes open only to blink them in confusion. Something was **definitely** askew. She was moving but at the same time, she knew that it wasn't her legs carrying out the motions. When she realized that they felt like they were uselessly drifting along, Rinoa quickly came to the conclusion that she was being carried somewhere. She closed her eyes. If her head wasn't killing her so much she would have kept them open or opened her mouth to find out _who_ was exactly carrying her.

"_This would be a lot easier if you weren't so damn short."_ the first voice on her left argued.

Rinoa inwardly smirked. '_That's __**definitely**__ Seifer.' _Her mind immediately went to work on the possible identity of the second carrier. _'Hm. If he was complaining height, then the second guy's probably...um...Zell! Yeah, that'd make sense. ...Only I don't feel that much of a difference._'

"_Blaming me for something I have no control over? That's mature." _the second voice wise-cracked._ ...Squall? "Then again, I shouldn't expect any different from you."_

She felt some minor jostling and a faint _'ding'_ of what must have been the elevator. Surprisingly enough, Rinoa found herself wanting to pretend that she was still out cold from whatever happened. Whether it owed to the fact that she didn't have her eyes open or that it was incredibly obvious, the side Seifer was on felt twice as hot as Squall's, which could mean one of two things. And Rinoa was positive that it had nothing to do with physical strain.

"_Like I care._" the blond sniped back amid the random background noises the elevator was providing. "_I still don't know what hell she sees in you._"

There was some awkward shifting on Squall's side. "..._What are you talking about?_"

"_I'm talking about today dipshit._" he barked. "_—The way you two were acting before the bell went and how she kept on looking at you when she was up front. As much as I don't want to say it, that rumour's starting to hold water._"

"_So a few random things validate a groundless rumour? You're just as pathetic as the others Almasy._"

"_You seem to be ignoring the fact that I know how you work __**Leonhart**__." _he retorted with extra emphasis on his surname. _"You never acknowledge anyone unless if you absolutely have to. And I doubt that anything that happened today counts under 'absolutely have to'. Something's up."_

"_Whatever. I don't need to justify my actions to you." _Squall sharply countered. _"...Why do you care so much about the possibility that I might be screwing around with her anyway?_"

Rinoa was tempted to open her eyes when there was a dead silence after Squall's question but she knew there had to be a logical explanation for it. And there was one – the elevator door had just opened.

"..._She's good friend." _Seifer answered. _"And the last thing I need is for you to drag her down with you even if you are just fucking around with her. She doesn't deserve that kind of bullshit. And just for the record, I know something's up because you normally would have wormed your way out of Kolp asking you to help carry her. Care to explain that one?_"

This time Rinoa managed to open her eyes and say something. Her head still hurt but the dull pain was a little more manageable.

"...What happened?" she quietly asked, effectively piercing the silence Squall created. There was some minor jostling on both sides.

"Your one leg gave out and you conked your head on one of the desks. Knocked you right out." Seifer succinctly answered. "Kolp asked me and Squall to bring you to the infirmary. I was going to do it by myself but the old bat thought I was going to drop you or something."

Although it hurt to do so, Rinoa smirked. "...Why does that not surprise me? My legs have been feeling like jelly all day now."

"Hey, if you keep it up you'll probably beat Squall's infirmary record." Rinoa felt Seifer shift a little bit. "What was it, seven times in January last year?"

"...I'm not getting into that one."

"Hyne, why didn't I see _that_ answer coming?" he sarcastically drawled before the three of them neared the infirmary.

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"So..._why_ do I have to be here again? I'm not sick."

Dr. Kadowaki gave Squall a stern look. "To make sure the Estharian flu you both caught had nothing to do with the collapse. If it is somehow related then I'll keep you here on bed rest as a pre-emptive measure. Hold on a moment, I've just got to get a few things from the back. _Stay here._"

Once she was seemingly out of sight, Rinoa inched over to the foot of her bed, close to the stool Squall was currently sitting on. The infirmary didn't have many spare beds at the moment so space was tight. Most of their occupants were asleep or knocked out so at least there was a little bit of privacy here. Truth be told, Rinoa was supposed to be one of the infirmary's sleeping occupants, but there was just too much on her mind. Seifer had left the moment he wasn't needed but the instant Squall had tried to do the same, doctor had barred him from doing so. Rinoa was secretly thankful for this, it provided an opportunity to talk with him freely.

"_Squall?_" she whispered. He turned to face her about ten seconds later. "_Just so you know, I...haven't been having the best time keeping up appearances for the charade either. I can't seem to stay consistent. One minute I'm playing it down, the next, I'm trying to laugh it off with someone and it blows up in my face. Sorry if that's going screw things up even more._"

Right then, Squall looked as he was refraining from doing something, she wasn't sure what though. "...So I take you heard all of that before?"

"Yeah, I regained consciousness after Seifer was complaining that you were too short, which sounded ridiculous to me since you're not short. I'm short." At this point, Rinoa knew she was going on a tangent but quite frankly, she didn't care right now. "I think he was just looking for an excuse to hide the fact that he can be really, really uncoordinated sometimes."

"...I already knew that. I've seen him trip over his own feet more times than I care to remember. The guy's too tall for his own good."

Rinoa managed a small giggle without aggravating something. "I know that this going to sound like another insult again, but, you're getting really good at nailing down this fake boyfriend persona thing."

"...Whatever, as long as it works." He dug a hand into one of his pockets, pulled something out and gave it to her. "...This was left behind after you fell."

"Thanks."

Rinoa reached over and grabbed the crumpled piece of paper. It inevitably had to be her evaluation sheet. After she smoothed out the note, she read the contents of the page with a burgeoning smile on her face.

"I'd say that we got exactly the same thing for the presentation and poems, but you gave me yours instead of mine."

"There was a reason I gave you mine." he explained. "Read the comments on the bottom."

Peering down at the page, she glanced over the comments section.

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_**Unit V – Poetry**_

_**Oral Mark:**__ Fail – 52 – 56 – 59 – 62 – 66 – 69 – 72 – 76 – 79 – __**82**__ – 86 – 90 – 94 – 98 - 100 _

_**Written Mark:**__ Fail – 52 – 56 – 59 – 62 – 66 – 69 – 72 – 76 – 79 – 82 – 86 – __**90**__ – 94 – 98 - 100 _

_**Additional Comments:**__ Squall, that was exceptionally better. Rinoa must be doing a fine job of teaching you the ins and outs of poetry and went beyond what was asked to help your presentation skills because it shows. I think it would be in your best interest to ask her to tutor you further._

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

The teenager looked back up and furrowed her eyebrows. "Why did you make me read those comments? I'm already your tutor."

"You always seem to apologize for everything I'm doing for the sake of the act or that's going wrong because you can't see that you're doing something to make the agreement fair. This is proof that you're contributing. I don't want to hear anymore apologies or...whatever. I don't need a saviour complex." He handed her another page from his pocket. "This one's your evaluation sheet."

Rinoa gave him back his page and accepted her own. It read,

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_**Unit V – Poetry**_

_**Oral Mark:**__ Fail – 52 – 56 – 59 – 62 – 66 – 69 – 72 – 76 – 79 – 82 – 86 – __**90**__ – 94 – 98 - 100 _

_**Written Mark:**__ Fail – 52 – 56 – 59 – 62 – 66 – 69 – 72 – 76 – 79 – 82 – 86 – 90 – __**94**__ – 98 - 100 _

_**Additional Comments: **__Your presentation was as good as always Rinoa. My only suggestion is that you pick a more general spot to keep your eyes on if you're not entirely comfortable with looking at who you're addressing. Don't keep your focus on one person in particular because it may affect the level of engagement you have with your audience. _

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

The teenager looked up with another smile. "I did really well but she told me not to look at you. You might '_affect the level of engagement_' with my audience." she joshed.

Before Squall even had the chance to roll his eyes, Doctor Kadowaki seemingly materialized behind him.

"My, this is a first. You're still here Mr. Leonhart. Is there something I should know about?"

Instead of Squall giving the older woman an answer right after he looked back at her, Rinoa took it upon herself to do so for him.

"No, not really. He was going to leave right after you left but I found a way to make him stay put."

The doctor quirked an eyebrow. "...Alright then. Thank you." Then she turned her attention towards Squall again. "Follow me to the next bed over so I can run a couple of tests so Rinoa can get some rest."

Catching the hint, Rinoa scooted away from the bed's edge and laid down, not before catching Squall give her a faint nod however. The smile she had on remained well after he'd left for whatever tests the doctor had in store for him.

'_This charade will probably change how people perceive you so the least I can do is make sure Doctor Kadowaki still sees you as the guy who keeps on wanting to leave her infirmary Squall. I owe you that much, regardless of whatever you say._'

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Sorry it took so long. I had exams up until last Monday. Anyways, I've kinda got mixed feelings on this one since I was a little stumped for this chapter too. I couldn't have it as funny as I wanted it to be because I felt like Seifer was too much of a friend to really say anything witty about this in front of Rinoa, you know? Gah, whatever. It'll probably get better as this goes along.

Hope you sorta liked it anyway.

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbits - **The whole 'brain transplant' thing was actually a reference to Breaking Free, where Rinoa mentions it to Squall in a library. This chapter also marks the first time I've actually mentioned Zell in all of this. Sad, I know.


	30. Chapter XXIX – Backtracking

**Author's Notes - **Not much to say for this one other than this chappy's like a cheap birthday present to myself. It's going to be short, but that's only to make the update speedier..._and so it actually lands on my birthday...err yeah_. Anywho, there's virtual cake to all who review. You know you want some. ; )

Okay...that read really, really _**wrong**_...

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXIX – Backtracking**

-

_Come as you are, as you were,  
As I want you to be,  
As a friend, as a friend,  
As an old enemy,  
Take your time, hurry up,  
Choice is yours, don't be late,  
Take a rest as a friend._

_**-Nirvana, Come As You Are.**_

_- _

Lying down on her bed, Rinoa still couldn't make herself fall asleep no matter how hard she tried. She was far too nosy for her own good — meaning that she wanted to know if Squall has whatever it was she had. Most likely not, given that he's been flu-free for a couple of days, but the doctor still had to rule it out. And that's why the teenager kept her ear near the material divide.

Using foam cups on a string was _**so**_ overrated.

"_Your eyes, ears and mouth show no signs of lingering infection so that rules that out and your temperature's normal so there's nothing new to worry about there. I'm going to test your reflexes, breathing and heart rate next so if those are within normal range, you're free to leave._"

There was patch of silence for about a minute before the doctor spoke again.

"_Okay...reflexes are normal. Please come closer to the edge of the bed so I can record your breathing and heart rate properly._"

After couple of noises from the coils of mattress giving and maybe a sharp breath or two – Rinoa assumed that the stethoscope was cold – the doctor's voice could be heard again.

"_Hm...okay. Breathing and heart rate are fine so you can leave after doing one last thing for me._"

Rinoa quietly sighed in relief and rested the side of her head on the pillow. '_Oh good, he doesn't have whatever it is that caused this. The last thing I need is to hear that I gave him something or vice versa and get another guilt trip out of it. Things are crazy enough as-_'

The girl felt a small vibration from the bed's frame, effectively derailing her train of thought. She turned onto her back and sat up. It was Squall who'd kicked one of the legs. Rinoa gave him a befuddled stare, not knowing what to make of this. "What is it?"

"...Doctor Kadowaki says that if you're going to eavesdrop, you should at least be a little more inconspicuous about it."

Rinoa's face felt like someone stuck it in an oven and twisted the dial to high. "_Oh. _I'll...um, remember that. Thanks..._I think._"

Within a blink of an eye, Squall vanished from sight and the doctor took his place. Strangely enough, she didn't have a stern look or anything reserved for her. In fact, the closest description Rinoa could use to classify the expression she had on was something along the lines of perplexed with a dash of curiosity. She came closer to her bedside.

"I know that this has absolutely no medical relevance to your condition but I have to ask. Is there something going on between the two of you?"

Rinoa's eyes widened for a split second before she caught herself. "Um...no, not really. Err, why do you ask?"

"His heart rate was on the higher end of the normal and he actually relayed the message I had for you, which isn't cause for medical observation, but is peculiar all the same," The doctor readjusted her glasses with a light smirk. "—especially when I have my doubts that he was _stopped _from leaving. Coming from years of experience, if that boy had it in his mind to leave, nothing would have swayed his decision."

The teenager bit the inside of her lip. _This was wonderful,_ she thought, _now the doctor's even in on this_—_Wait_, if she got that idea that they were something and they hadn't even been caught doing something outwardly couple-like, maybe, just maybe, they were on the right track. Perhaps a third party and completely objective adult could be of some use here.

"Actually...it's not so much that we're together or anything, it's just that someone made up a vicious rumour about the two of us." Rinoa let out a theatrical sigh. "...I'm sure you've probably heard someone say it around here too."

The doctor shook her head. "No, I haven't. As a doctor, it's not my place to allow my ears to hear those kinds of things. I rely on my own observations and nothing more. You'd be surprised by the number of former colleagues of mine have lost their jobs to gossip."

"I can imagine. Gossip can be toxic if you let it."

Doctor Kadowaki politely nodded. It was back to business now. "Now after comparing your results with Squall's, I can safely say that the Estharian flu had nothing to do with the collapse. However, combined with stress, I believe that it might have been an indirect cause in your case."

"...How?"

"In some cases, the nausea can be very acute with the Estharian flu, which naturally reduces a person's appetite. Combined with stress, the body uses extra energy and by all means, if it's not there, it can't function properly, resulting in these kinds of problems. So," The doctor readjusted her glasses again. "-would this assumption be correct here?"

Rinoa lethargically nodded. "...I haven't been able to eat a lot since I caught it and yesterday, things were just so...all over the place and I couldn't eat at all, even if I wanted to. With this rumour and a presentation I had to do today...I guess it did me in."

"Alright. For the time being, I want you to rest and depending on how you are later on, I might keep you in for further observation. Is that understood?"

"Yeah."

At that moment, the doctor walked away from her bedside and Rinoa lied down, attempting to sleep. Her heart was beating far too wildly for her attempt at slumber to be successful however. It was a close call, too close for comfort. Rinoa was almost certain that the comment of the flu cutting her appetite was going to foreshadow a weigh-in, but it thankfully wasn't the case. The number she saw on the scale everyday should only be her business – everyone else would get the wrong idea if they saw her number. Her number was fine as far as she was concerned, the third digit wasn't necessary. Squall and Seifer proved that today; they were **both** needed to carry her here. _Wait_, Rinoa scarcely thought, _Squall picked you up the other day without any help, doesn't that—_

_No,_ another part of her brain started to rationalize, _he's just really strong from all the stuff everyone does in Gym, don't think of yourself as the only variable you should be considering here._ And that was that, she thought, case closed. Rinoa tried once more to sleep in the wake of that particular dilemma's end, but things weren't always that simple, she still had plenty of things to mull over as far as Squall and this charade was concerned. And boy was that going to take _**a lot**_ of mulling over.

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

By ten o' clock she had fallen asleep, by eleven she was in a spin cycle of waking up and nodding off and by twelve she was closing her eyes, pretending to be sleeping. Would have gotten away with that too if the visitor for the bed beside her hadn't told that side-splitting joke, but no such luck there. The brief respite from the outside world she had gained here was taken away from her giggle by giggle. After the doctor ran some simple tests on her reflexes and concentration, she was fed, borderline force-fed, a ghastly amount of food and sent off with a permission slip to go on her merry way to class.

The only problem with that plan was that Rinoa was without her backpack which included, among other things, her gym clothes. Needless to say, to go on her, ahem, _merry way_ to class would entail some backtracking. With each step she took to the classroom in question, Rinoa silently prayed that it wouldn't be awkward. Asking teachers things in a silent and student-less environment was never her forte. The sheer unnatural and creepy nature of these kinds of encounters never failed to bring out her inner klutz. She became at risk for violent desk collisions, toe stubbings and the odd squeaky word.

Her hand was on the classroom's knob.

'_How did it get there?'_

She twisted it and slowly pushed the door open.

'_God, was my mind elsewhere? Yeah, I must have been praying that I wasn't going to be a complete—_' Thud! _'—Ergh...klutz. ...Too late.'_

She stubbed her toes on an errant chair leg, breaking the unholy silence ofthe room, nicely caught the teacher's attention too. Her toes annoyingly throbbed with dull pain. Had she been alone, she would have cursed a storm and hopped around wildly on one foot. But no, Instructor Kolp was there so the teenager's options were reduced to mumble an incoherent string of mumbles and half-words or clench her teeth and stretch her lips into a strained and twisted grin. Rinoa chose the latter; she figured she'd save the string of mumbles and half-words for when she'd actually talk to Kolp about the bag seeing as it wasn't anywhere to be seen near her desk.

It was maybe a matter of half a minute before Rinoa was able to stop making joker faces and actually walk towards the instructor.

"Yes Rinoa?" the older woman pre-empted.

"Um, yeah. By any chance, do you happen to have my backpack somewhere? I know I left by my desk and I don't see it there."

The instructor gave her a peculiar look. Clearly this wasn't the kind of questions she must have been anticipating. "No, I don't. I believe it was a friend of yours who offered to bring it to the infirmary once Dr. Kadowaki informed me that you wouldn't be returning to class."

"No...Dr. Kadowaki didn't say anything about getting my backpack from anyone." Then the teenager's eyes subtly shifted. Something clicked in her head. "Instructor Kolp, could you tell me who it was who offered to take my backpack? It wasn't Squall was it?"

"No. It was Natalia."

Rinoa froze as a million thoughts crammed through her head all at once, vying for first place in her mind, but never fully forming. '_This is not good_' kept on blaring in her brain like a heavy metal concert. How could Adrienne, Ivy or Squall let this happen? Before she knew it, Rinoa's legs carried her out of the room. To where? She wasn't quite sure. All that she could concentrate on was sporadic thoughts drifting in and out of her head. '_What is she going to do with my bag?_' and '_She's probably doing this to make me suffer more,_' being the forerunners in the whole affair in her mind, popping up the most often. The stupor only lifted in the oddest of places – the main floor near the Garden elevator and circular fountains.

It's where she bumped into the blonde herself. She was knapsack-less and clad in gym clothes, hair swept up in a loose ponytail. The haughty yet slightly uneasy look on her face did nothing but perplex the raven-haired girl. Nat uneasy-looking? Did Shiva start using Fire spells too?

Nevertheless, Rinoa gave her a glare as best she could, nothing Squall-worthy, but something vaguely reminiscent to glaring daggers. "You've got some real nerve, taking my bag after what you did. Don't you think the rumour's enough or did you have to go for something more childish in the meantime?"

Nat rolled her eyes. "_Right_, because stealing your homework is _so_ entertaining. Pfft. Get over yourself. I did it so it'd give me the chance to talk with you."

"What _is_ there to talk about Nat?" Rinoa abrasively rebutted. "You spread a rumour about me and Squall because you were mad at me. I don't think that needs any more clarification unless there's more to this rumour than people are telling me."

"No, you're right, it doesn't. But maybe _you_ can clear up something."

Rinoa quirked her eyebrows. Their ruse couldn't have worked already, it was far too early. This couldn't possibly be anything she could answer.

"Mute boy's been acting strange ever since I let it slip and you conveniently get the flu and start falling over in class. I'm starting to think that my rumour's not a rumour anymore."

This comment didn't help Rinoa's eyebrows any, knowing what she was alluding to. She wasn't going to give her the satisfaction though. "Since when does falling over in class and being sick equal I screwed a guy from class? Your stupid rumour made stressed out enough to pass out and it's January for God sakes, of course I'm going to get sick once in a while."

Nat rolled her eyes. "You say that and yet you were ogling him the entire time in class. Yeah, there's no connection there." she sarcastically riposted. "Miss Priss was practically spouting the same lines in September, but look what happened there."

...So much for not giving her the satisfaction. "So that's why you took my bag, to ask if I was _pregnant? _I'm sorry you think that, but I stand by what I said."

"No, I stole your bag to ask if you were to make sure that it was just my imagination acting up."

Now Rinoa was confused. Wasn't she supposed to hate her guts or something?

"Look," There was a sort of hardness in Nat's grey eyes that the teenager couldn't ignore. Something was telling her to listen and listen well. "-even though the _holier than thou_ attitude you had in that e-mail really burned me and we aren't friends anymore, I don't want to see you fucking your life up completely. There's more to Squall then he lets on Rinoa, he's dangerous."

Rinoa sighed. "Ryan said the same thing about Seifer and so far, nothing's happened to justify that warning. If Squall burned you in the past, I'm sorry but please don't go out of your way to tell me something like that. He doesn't seem like that type of guy to me. And if something happens later on because I didn't listen to you today, I give you full permission to laugh at my face then."

"Whatever," she shrugged, "-it's a free country. Ryan probably told you that because Adrienne used to go out with him. And if I didn't know any better, you sounded like you were going out with Squall."

Her eyes widened. '_Adrienne did what—_'

Suddenly a voice behind Nat prevented the would-have-been silent patch. "..._Maybe she is, maybe she isn't. Why do you care?_"

Nat turned around briskly to see the speaker and Rinoa blinked. There Squall was, not dressed in gym clothes of any sort, holding her backpack of all things. Surprisingly enough, Nat lost her cool exterior for a moment. It took a couple of seconds for her to regain composure.

"_B_ecause you're a cold-hearted asshole and a complete jerk." she angrily blurted.

Judging by the lack of expression on his face, Squall didn't seem fazed in the slightest. "Last time I checked, people aren't supposed to worry over someone they spread rumours about." he logically deduced. "And for the record, I'm not fond of you either."

"Whatever, call it my last action as a former friend." she gritted. Soon after, she stepped back enough so that they could both see her face and she could see theirs. She scoffed once she saw the bag in his hands. "You found out about her bag and went out of your way to get it from my gym locker when you didn't even show up for the rest of Lit or Gym? Oh, this is rich."

Squall glared at her. "One of her friends gave this to me when she saw me in the hallway. I wouldn't bother doing this otherwise."

"No, the Squall everyone used to know wouldn't do it _period_." she quipped. "Gee, you know what? I think this answers that question I had earlier. Good luck with that then." she said ironically. "Hyne knows you'll need it when you have to explain what happened before the school year."

She walked away without another word. Rinoa turned towards her left and made eye contact with Squall. He quietly handed her the backpack. So many things had happened in the past few minutes and yet there seemed to be a lack of words to describe what had just transpired.

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **There you go, hope you enjoy! I'm off to do some birthday-related things so drop me a line to let me know how you liked it. Sorry if there are a lot of typos at the moment, I don't have the time to look them over now but I promise I'll reread it later.

_-Emerald-Latias _


	31. Chapter XXX – Absenteeism

**Author's Notes** – Nothing to really say here other than —**Holy crap...this thing's long enough to be thirty chapters?! And I'm nowhere near done?!** Oops...my fingers slipped on the bold tab. Anywho...hopefully I'll really be able to get the ball rolling on this because I'm starting to annoy myself here. And to think I had a fic done and wrapped up in seven chapters once upon a time. I almost reminisce about having that ability at one time. Sniff... Oh well.

Oh, I have a new poll up for those who are interested.

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXX – Absenteeism**

-

_When the world keeps spinning round,  
My world's upside down,  
And I wouldn't change a thing,  
I've got nothing else to lose,  
I lost it all when I found you,  
And I wouldn't change a thing,  
No, you and I wouldn't change a thing._

_**-Lifehouse, Spin.  
**_

-

Rinoa grimaced as she walked away from the elevator. "I suppose I blew that one, didn't I?"

Walking alongside her, Squall rubbed his one eye with his palm and let out a long-drawn sigh.

"...No. That was a team effort." he reckoned. "We both blew that."

"On second thought, maybe we didn't."

He looked in her direction, with an unamused look on his face.

"Even though we bungled that up pretty badly, it doesn't really make a difference in the grand scheme of things. I mean, the whole point of this is to make her think that we're in a good relationship so that it blows up in her face, right? So it would be the end result that matters, not how we got there. So in a way, we came out ahead here because we won't have to act as much now."

His unamused look turned skeptical. "I severely doubt that."

Rinoa blinked. "Doubt what?"

"That the end justifies the means." he clarified. "We're bound to lose a lot more. It'll blow up in_ our_ faces, not hers."

"How do you figure? Other than being the center of attention for a little bit, I don't see any downside."

"We're bound to lose more because we've already screwed up this much and it's only the first day. What do you suppose will happen when even more attention is on us? We'll crack. That's why I wanted this to go slowly, to gradually adjust to the pressure."

The raven-haired girl frowned. He had a point there.

"So was that why you didn't show up for the rest of Lit and Gym?"

It was a long while before he replied with a reluctant '_yes_' right before they were in front of the Training Centre. Judging from the subtle change in facial expression, he must have been surprised when Rinoa stopped him from walking any further.

"Squall, do you just want to...um, I don't know, skip Gym and History?"

Squall raised an eyebrow. "...Why are you asking me to skip with you? It doesn't take two people to do that."

"No, it doesn't but, it gets really boring when you skip by yourself. Besides, I don't think you want to go to class anyway."

"That's true, but you're not thinking about the consequences. If the two of us don't show up, who knows what people will assume once she's opened her mouth? It'll only complicate things further."

"But it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation." she argued. "So why not take the easier way out? You didn't show up for the other classes, so why bother showing up for the rest of them?"

"That's not the case for you though."

Rinoa shrugged. "If no one really knows I've been let out of the infirmary so I could probably get away with it." she reasoned. "Why are you arguing so much anyway? You don't want to go to class; I don't want to go to class...it shouldn't be that hard to agree on this."

There was a good thirty second pause before anything was said.

"...Fine." He sighed in defeat. "...Where do we go? We might be seen by someone we know if we wander around here."

The teenager was genuinely surprised by his reply. She was honestly expecting a '_that's assuming I even want to go with you'_ or something like that. Then again, the dynamics of this whole affair had changed within a matter of minutes and perhaps he realized that his approach on things would have to change as well.

"Um...I haven't thought of that yet. We can't go in the library because there's bound to be some class in there, can't go in the cafeteria either...um...what about the hallway where the SeeD and SeeD candidates' dorms are? No one we'd know would be there. They'd all be older people."

He shrugged and started walking in that direction. The more Rinoa followed him, the more she noticed that his strides were becoming more brisk. It was vaguely reminiscent of the first day at the Garden where she was following him. She lightly smiled at the underlying irony. Back then, she'd followed him to go to Gym and he'd ousted her in annoyance, and now, it was an entirely different story; he was allowing her to follow him to get _away_ from Gym.

"So..um, Squall?" This caught his attention faster than she'd predicted. Squall looked at her attentively, his eyes looking a little more blue than usual. "By any chance do you know who was it who gave you my backpack?"

He shrugged. "...I don't know her name."

"Did she have a lot of earrings on?"

"No, I think it might have been the pregnant friend you had mentioned."

"Was she wearing a charcoal sweater?"

Rinoa wanted to slap herself when his reply consisted of awkward silence and a mildly confused expression on his face.

'_Oh yeah, I forgot he's a guy. How silly of me to assume that he knows the names of the colours beyond the ones you can find in a basic box of colouring crayons.'_

"Was it a blackish-grey sweater? Like a faded black?"

The perplexed look went away and he nodded.

'_Ah, now we're getting somewhere here._' she mused.

"You're right then. It was the pregnant friend I'd told you about. Her name's Ivy." She paused for a second. "So...did she say anything to you?"

The overwhelming presence of blue in his usually blue-grey eyes was almost disconcerting. Rinoa seriously questioned the possibility of it being some sort of tell over the lighting of the place. Based on the crystal clear memory of when she'd bumped into him all those months ago, she knew for a fact that his eyes were their usual blue-grey colouring in this amount of light.

"She said that she hopes that we'll get through whatever troubles the rumour will cause."

"That's good." Rinoa exhaled as they walked down the corridor to the SeeD dormitories. "For a moment there I was expecting you to say something bad from the look on your face."

"...What look?"

"I..." She drew a blank. None of the words that came to mind seemed to fit here. "—can't quite explain it. The only thing I can really say is that you gave me the same kind of look when Nat made that quip about needing luck when you'd have to tell me about something you apparently '_did_' in the summer."

He feebly acknowledged her answer with a mere grunt. Rinoa continued.

"You know, it's weird. This whole thing with Nat, I mean. Before you came, she was acting really strange. She told me that she took my bag just to have the chance to talk to me."

Rinoa silenced herself when she realized that she was her own audience; her companion was out in his own little world as the walked along the open corridor leading to the dorms. It was when they were halfway through the hallway when the cold wind from outside picked up and started to cut through the heavy cream-coloured sweater and long denim skirt Rinoa was wearing. Huddling her arms close to her body, she stole a glance Squall's way to see if the cold had interrupted his daydreaming. Evidenced by the intense staring contest he was having with his shoes as he walked — Squall was winning — it had not.

Rinoa averted her gaze and frowned. "Is there...something wrong?"

No answer. He kept on walking and kept on staring at his shoes.

When they passed the open section after a minute or two, a rush of conversely-warm air assailed their senses. The pair parked themselves on the floor and sat between a random potted plant and a closed dorm door with their backs against the wall. The area was eerily quiet and void of random passersby, presumably because of classes. But despite this noticeable attribute, the first thing Rinoa noticed was the presence of an expression on Squall's face, albeit hard to discern. He tilted his head backwards until she heard a dull thump. He finally broke the self-imposed silence when he slowly swivelled his head to look at her.

"What did she tell you?" His question was simple, his tone was weary and his motives were unclear. All Rinoa knew was that the question he posed wasn't as simple as it appeared on the surface. Otherwise, he would have listened to her in the first place instead of plunging head-first into think-mode. She simply said what she didn't have the opportunity to say earlier.

When Rinoa took a small breath, the area surrounding them took on an almost-daunting seriousness. "I'm not going to lie to you. The reason she wanted to talk to me is because she was under the impression that there was another reason behind the things that have been happening recently and she wanted to make sure that it was just her imagination acting up."

"I can already imagine the conclusion to this recycled story." he sarcastically chimed in.

"...Yeah, that was pretty much it." She momentarily bit the inside of her lip. "So...after I convinced her that I wasn't, she told me that you weren't who said you were and that you were dangerous. You probably heard the rest of what she said when you showed up."

A terse and monosyllabic, '_Hm_,' was the reply. Mildly perplexed by the boredom-tinged tone, Rinoa began feeling like her grasp on the situation was escaping her. Why was he switching up the spectrum of attitude he was projecting all of a sudden? One minute, he seemed lost inside another world, the next, bitter and sarcastic, the one after, evidently uninterested. It all seemed kind of disjointed to her, even for someone she found as unpredictable as Squall.

Suddenly her brown eyes widened but she never got the chance to act on her suspicions. He'd followed up on that _'Hm,_' before she had the opportunity to edge a word in.

"...Do you believe her?"

'_Oops. Maybe I was too quick to judge there.'_

Rinoa shook her head. "No. But...I wonder why she's always out to get you like this. It's almost like she's believing her own lies just to give herself a reason to really hate you for what you did, or in this case, didn't do to her."

"I shouldn't be that hard to hate." he pointed out.

"I'm not going to comment on that one." Rinoa added with a touch of uncertainty in her tone. "I can't tell if you're joking."

"That's because I don't joke."

"You're forgetting about those two times you—"

"Those don't count." he argued. "The first time was unintentional and the second was because I was half asleep."

"Okay, okay, whatever you say." she shrugged. "So while we're here, I was thinking that we could ask each other some questions to answer so that we can be a little more comfortable being around each other so this thing will look more natural. No one's here so it's more or less the only thing we can do to kill the time without having to count ceiling tiles."

He looked at her quizzically. "And how is asking random questions going to help me? I doubt that knowing your favourite colour is useful information."

"No, you're right, knowing that my favourite colour is blue wouldn't help you any for this but if you know stuff like that, I won't seem like such a stranger so it might help you fake the closeness. Besides, couples are supposed to know the odd thing or two about each other like I've said in that one e-mail. Haven't you ever tried to learn about someone you're dat—"

Rinoa stopped herself in mid-sentence. Somehow it felt kind of awkward to ask about that, especially when she knew virtually nothing about in that department and all she had to go on was the fact that she wasn't the first one to kiss him.

The quizzical look on his face faded a little. "...If you're afraid that your question hit a nerve, it didn't."

"That's...good." She exhaled. "I wasn't sure if I had since, well, I don't know much about you ...other than knowing that you had a personal stalker for a while."

Squall tossed her a wry look. "...Very funny."

Rinoa smirked a little after seeing something she was sure he didn't realize.

"Well, I thought so." she riposted. "And I'm sure you did too because I see an itty-bitty grin on your face."

"Whatever." The corners of his mouth dipped south as per usual. "So...what kinds of questions am I supposed to ask you?"

Rinoa almost had to laugh at his uneasy tone; it was priceless and endearing in its own way. Her mind briefly entertained the thought of asking about what he must have been like as a small child for fun. Somehow, she envisioned him being the shy little boy who spurred tons of cute little moments like the ones she was witnessing right now.

"Anything that comes to your mind, like say, what's the strangest thing you ever wore, what's the best superpower to have in your opinion or what's the oldest you've ever been mistaken for, that sort of thing."

Squall still didn't look sold. "That's not very practical."

"Not everything has to be Squall. Those were just examples anyway; you don't have to copy them. But if you're that uncomfortable, why don't I ask you some questions to start off? I promise not to ask anything really weird."

He shrugged. "I don't care."

"Okay then. Lemme see..." Rinoa paused for a moment to collect her thoughts and make up a good question to ask. She decided on what she thought of earlier. "What were you like as a little boy?"

"..."

Her smirk grew. "Don't tell me you're regretting that '_I don't care'_." she teased, bunny-ear quotes and all.

"...I was expecting a stupid question."

"I think you might have been expecting an easy question, not a stupid question." she said pointedly.

He sighed and gently rubbed his eyes. "I wasn't much different as a kid, very quiet and shy. ...You?"

Rinoa blinked. This was a surprise. "Me?"

Squall moved his hands away from his eyes and nodded, looking at her wryly. "I'm not the only whose going to suffer through this question."

"That's...uh, no problem Squall. I was really bubbly and outgoing when I was little. I had a lot of friends and I was kind of popular. Actually, I was like that for the longest time until maybe tenth grade." She paused to think of another question for a brief moment. "Okay, for my next question...what would be one thing people would be surprised to know about you?"

"I got 100 percent on an oral presentation two years ago." he answered shortly thereafter. "...Stop looking at me like that. You asked."

Rinoa still had her head tilted in shock even after he told her to stop. "How in Hyne's name did you manage _**that?**_"

"It was for a Weaponry class. I knew a lot about Gunblades so I wrote about them."

"Oh. I didn't know you that you were into that stuff. So do you just talk about theory in that class or do you go out and practice different kinds of things too?"

"No, it was only theory. Practicing with weapons would cause too many problems."

"I can imagine. If two people get angry at each other for whatever reason or they're just plain clumsy, it's a liability right there. Someone could end up with a sliced up face or worse."

He politely nodded. "...What about you?"

'_Boy, you're being __**real**__ original Squall.' _she sarcastically mused. '_But you know what? I can't complain, really. At least you're trying._'

"Hm...I'd have to say that people would be surprised to know that I have a pair of angel wings tattooed on my back since I was 16. No one knows about it because my hair pretty much covers them no matter what I wear."

Squall furrowed his eyebrows. "...Don't you have to be 18 for that?"

"Fake ID." she explained. "I used to be an impatient brat. Couldn't wait that long." Out of blue, Rinoa started giggling a little. "Come to think of it, I almost got caught when I first got them. My back was so itchy for the first few days that it looked like I was having muscle spasms when I was trying to stop myself from scratching there. My parents wanted to take me to the doctor's."

"Hm."

"Squall?"

"...What?"

"That thing on your wrist, I know it's not black marker."

He gave her a weird look. "...Why are you talking about that?"

"Because...I thought it was appropriate to bring up considering I was just talking about my tattoo." Despite her words, even Rinoa didn't seem so confident of her own answer. It still seemed a little random to her, more like something she blurted out without thinking. Nevertheless, words couldn't be erased so she decided to explain herself even if her actions would still seem uncalled for. "That day I saw it, you didn't convince me that it was. If that was marker under your watch, it would have smudged because of sweat. And if you were trying to remind yourself of something, I doubt you'd purposely write it under your watch."

"...So why do you care so much if it isn't marker?"

Rinoa allowed herself to be secretly in awe for the split-second she had before she'd have to answer him. _'...I can't believe that worked.'_

"It's not so much that I care that it's marker, it's that I wonder why you're trying to tell me such a silly lie. If you'd told me that it was a tattoo in the first place, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. Plenty of people our age have tattoos for different reasons. You brought attention to this because of the lie."

He sighed. "Fine...it is. Now will you stop bothering me about it?"

"Sure. Now it's your turn to ask me a question."

"...It'll take me a while to think of one."

"That's fine. I'm in no hurry. Take all the time you want."

Something about the way he looked away suggested that Rinoa hadn't given him the answer he sought. She kept a smile to herself as she leaned forward and took off her heavy sweater to put it beside her backpack, revealing the light pink camisole she'd been wearing underneath. The area had become increasingly warm over the past few minutes, rendering the sweater useless. Right after, she used her fingers to straighten out a few unruly locks of hair. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Squall looking at her in a curious light. She looked back at him.

"Think of a question to ask me?"

"No. I just thought I saw something."

"Oh, do you mean the tattoo?"

"...I'm not sure—"

"Here, I can show you-" By simply pushing her raven tresses to the left, the tattoo was made visible. It consisted of a thin black outline of feathery, delicate-looking wings with highlights of blue to soften the edges. After a few seconds, she let her hair fall back into place. "It's funny. I think you're the only person I showed this to. Back then I was always afraid of getting caught somehow so I never showed my friends or anybody. I think I almost forgot that I had them after a while. ...Squall?"

"Hm?"

"You _really_ can't think of a question to ask me, can you?"

"No." he admitted.

"Still think this idea's stupid?"

And for her efforts, Rinoa was rewarded with a '_duh'_ look. Fortunately she didn't take offense to this. This was going nowhere and she wasn't afraid to admit it.

"Okay...do you know what time it is?"

After a brief glance of his watch, he deducted that it was about five minutes before third period finished.

"Well...maybe we should go to History. We're not achieving anything by sitting around here like I'd hoped. I think we just need to be in that situation in order to get better at it. Our real problem might have been expecting too much from ourselves." She picked up her sweater and put it back on. "I was wrong before. Running away...it doesn't help."

And with that, they both got up silently and picked up their respective backpacks before walking back. Rinoa smoothed out her hair once again. The last thing she needed was to have some random person assume that they snuck off to fool around because of her messy hair. _Then again_, she mused, _maybe I'm just being paranoid. I've got to stop that now._

"Squall?" They were now passing the open section. The wind wasn't as harsh as the first time. He turned to look her square in the eyes. "Could you do me a favour?"

Although he didn't say anything, she could tell that he was listening.

"I think we should make a point to walk in together. Not holding hands or anything like that."

He arched an eyebrow. "...Why?"

"You know why Squall. We have to tackle this head-on before it tackles us. Nat's not going to give us a choice."

"You're not considering the possibility that she's expecting this to crumble to pieces after what she said."

"That whole '_thing you did before school'_ business?" she said incredulously. "I thought she was pulling my leg to make me suspicious of you. So...are you saying that something did happen?"

"_No."_ he said firmly. "...What you said about suspicion is what I meant."

Rinoa narrowed her eyes. "You're not ready for this...are you?"

At that moment they both stopped dead in their tracks. Squall looked down at his sides. "No...I'm..." His face shot back up. "I'm fine."

She looked at him with concern. "...Are you sure?"

"Yes. Let's just...get it over with."

All of a sudden, Rinoa was almost left in his wake as he Squall abruptly started to walk at an extremely brisk pace. It wasn't long after when she bit her lip. Something was wrong, she realized, he looked like he was coming apart at the seams. And that wooden '_no_' he gave to her question about there being something was somewhat innerving.

'_Well...only time will tell. Who knows, maybe he'll trust me with time. He's already made a little progress so far even though it doesn't look that way._'

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Ever since the bell rang and students had been milling around the main hallway right after she'd caught up with him, Rinoa had a smile on her face. Not so much because there was people everywhere but because people were everywhere and paying them little to no attention whatsoever. She even spotted a few classmates pass by without any reaction from them either.

"_I think it's not going to be as bad as we thought._" she subtly whispered into his ear. "_No one's doing anything._"

"_Standing beside each other means nothing in a crowd._" he whispered back. "_Unless if you're joined at the hip._"

Rinoa's smile dimmed when they got into the elevator with four other people...so much for that. Still, hoping to leave some kind of impression on those around, two of the people were from class, Rinoa slowly and inconspicuously sidled up to him, bringing her closer than necessary in the confined space, much to Squall's subtle annoyance. The corners of his mouth, where she could notice from directly under his chin, twitched every so often. Although she didn't want to risk going any further with this, Rinoa couldn't help but find a secret delight in pushing his buttons like this. With his minor implosion earlier, she realized that she'd have to quietly push her limits so that he'd have to get used to the whole idea.

Before, when he was with her mom, Squall was saved from showing signs of affection out of a perceived courtesy and resorted to politeness to win her over. Now, tokens of physical affection were the tools they had to use to convince people, tools that might have been rusted over in his case.

As the elevator inched upwards, Rinoa could sense a growing discomfort from her being at such a close proximity. He seemed almost fidgety without the actual twitches to her. From her vantage point, she noticed that the way his eyes would silently dart from her to the others every so often. God forbid if the elevator made the slightest jerk or wobble. Then he'd be in _**real**_ discomfort...even though no one was really taking notice of them here either way from what Rinoa could see.

Apparently, the other occupants thought nothing of their closeness seeing as it was a tight fit for everyone to be here, backpacks and all. At this rate, she'd have to stick her tongue down his throat or rip off his clothes in a bestial fashion for them to connect the dots. And given Squall's inherent aversion to touch and her inherent aversion to looking like a tease, neither of those outcomes would end pretty.

After the '_ding_' noise of the elevator, the floor customarily shook as the doors opened. Oops. Rinoa had forgotten about that one and lost a little of her footing; the side of her face and body lightly brushing against his chest. She looked up and he looked down at her, trying not to look annoyed. He felt very warm to the touch. Rinoa stepped back after a purposely lingering there for a second or two. Out of the corners of her left eye, she finally saw the minute, but definitely there reactions from some of the other people now stepping out of the elevator. She smiled after they all left save for Squall._ Little by little this is going to work_, she thought to herself, _little by little._

While they were walking down the hallway together, Rinoa consciously looked around at the people around them while Squall casually had his hands in his pockets. A fair amount of people were lingering around but there would be more once the elevator made a couple more trips back and forth. With anticipation or anxiety, she wasn't sure which it was at the moment, bubbling in her stomach, Rinoa stole a glance at Squall to see how he was holding up so far. He seemed to be okay for the most part, maybe a little paler than normal. Before they knew it, they were already passing the classroom's threshold one after another.

There were a few people spread out across the room, most of which were minding their own business, looking at some papers or reading books. Walking in together did nothing to draw their attention away from those things. Squall and Rinoa both took their respective spots without as much as a peep from anyone else. As the minutes ticked on, more people filtered into the room and Rinoa eventually spotted Seifer among the masses. She waved him over but to her surprise, he didn't answer. Instead, he walked past her and directly went into his seat. Rinoa turned around. _Maybe he didn't see me_, she thought.

"Hey." She extended her arm to wave her hand in front of his face again. "Didn't see me waving before?"

"I did but I was distracted by the look on loverboy's face."

"_Loverboy?_" she repeated quizzically, "Who's loverboy?"

Seifer pointed a thumb in Squall's direction. The thumb-pointing seemed to have gotten Squall's attention nigh-instantaneously.

"...Why am I loverboy?"

"To get you going." the blond smugly replied with a smirk. "Boy, this rumour thing must be really messing you up. You actually took the bait this time."

Squall rolled his eyes and looked away. "...Whatever."

"Then again, your eyes were practically glued on her when she took her sweater off earlier so you could be a—"

This time, Rinoa was the one whose attention was immediately caught by Seifer's comments. "_—How did you see that?_" she shouted; a little louder than necessary judging by some of the fleeting stares she was getting around her. Right away, Rinoa knew that this was an '_Oops_' moment combined with her second '_I should have let my brain think about this first_' moment.

Despite her small outburst, Seifer plainly answered her. "I was wandering around after I left Gym early."

Rinoa's jaw figuratively dropped as she thought back to what Squall had said earlier when she'd taken her sweater off.

"_**Think of a question to ask me?"**_

"_**No. I just thought I saw something."**_

"_**Oh, do you mean the tattoo?" **_

"_**...I'm not sure—"**_

'_Hyne. He must have been referring to Seifer, not me. No wonder Seifer was kind of ignoring me—'_

"_**Miss Caraway-Heartilly and Mr. Leonhart?"**_ a voice at the front boomed. It was Instructor Trepe who was now in the room. Both teenagers shifted their attention towards the teacher. "I just received word from Headmaster Cid that he wants to see the both of you now. Leave your books and bags here and go straight to his office."

When more than a dozen of sets of eyes were now on the two of them, the raven-haired girl gulped and looked back at her blue-eyed companion.

"..._We are so busted._" she mouthed.

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments - **Sorry it took so long guys. I was having troubles thinking of what Rinoa and Squall would say to each other while they were sitting near the dorm rooms because I kept on rewriting it. Nothing seemed to feel right to me. Go figure, I have all this time and I had this awesome idea in mind from the beginning (them skipping class together) and I still couldn't update fast enough. Yeesh. Why don't I get struck by lightning too?

_...I'm not seriously wishing that. Being fried would suck._

Well, at least this was a little longer than last time. : )

_-Emerald-Latias _

**Random Tidbits - **Ooh, plenty of tidbits in this chappy. Okay, the examples of questions Rinoa said were the exact same ones she'd asked Tyler in chapter ten. When Squall is saying that actually practicing with weapons would cause problems, it's a reference to Breaking Free where numerous complications have happened. Rinoa's response to that was a nod to Squall and Seifer's facial scars in VIII (obviously). The angel wings Rinoa is trying to describe is based on the wings you see at the ending screen of VIII.


	32. Chapter XXXI – Wilted Flowers

**Author's Notes – **Hopefully this update will make up for my being slow for the last one. Damn! I forgot to take advantage of the **Chapter XXX** titling. I could have called it **Chapter XXX – Action** and you guys could have had a cheap laugh. Oh well. I could always resort to Seifer telling Rinoa dirty jokes_...or not..._

I edited my last chapter to tell you guys that there's a new poll but some of you may not have caught it. So go vote to your heart's content! Well...uh, you can vote once to your heart's content. Yeah. Anyways, I was thinking of changing up the polls every so often to go along with the fic's progression. If you have any suggestions/ideas for the questions I should ask in future polls from what you read, go ahead and PM me or write it in a review. I'm all ears. : )

On a different note, I hope this chapter's okay. I'm worried about the pacing above all else, but I _**think**_, I'm not one-hundred percent sure though, it'll still be fine. Besides, you guys have been wondering about this for eons, so you'll _**probably**_ like it...though I'm not one-hundred percent sure on that either.

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXXI – Wilted Flowers**

_-_

_And I don't want the world to see me,  
'Cause I don't think they'd understand,  
When everything's made to be broken,  
I just want you to know who I am._

**_-Goo Goo Dolls, Iris.  
_**

_-_

"Please sit down Mr. Leonhart and Miss Caraway-Heartilly. I want to have a word with the both of you. " Headmaster Cid said shortly after their arrival in his office.

Now Rinoa was officially worried as thoughts ping-ponged through her grey matter. It wasn't the stern tone that worried her, it was the uncertainty. She didn't know what the hell to expect since it was officially her first time being reprimanded for something, something she wasn't exactly sure of in the first place. Although one reason was more likely than the other possibilities floating around her brain, nothing was for certain. That much she did know.

Upon taking their seats, the older man looked in her direction first with an equally-stern expression on his face to match his tone. Rinoa secretly quivered with apprehension. What he must have called them to the office for must have been something other than their skipping; otherwise, her mind reasoned, he would have started with Squall. It wasn't a good thing by any means, not with Nat in the equation. Rinoa knew all the embarrassing details about the kind of interrogation Cid had to put Ivy through. It wasn't pretty.

"Although this is your first transgression since your arrival, it is my duty as Headmaster to tell you that Balamb Garden does not tolerate unjustified absences. Students here have a responsibility to uphold the academy's prestigious reputation by following standard Garden protocol."

At this very moment, Rinoa felt oddly relieved. Sure, she was still in trouble but any kind of punishment she'd get for skipping was something she could live with easily. But that didn't mean she was going to give up right there and then. Not when she had a viable excuse.

"Sir, if I may say something?"

His stern expression slackened a little and he allowed her to speak. Somehow this gave Rinoa the impression that he wasn't as much of a strict rule enforcer as his beginning speech led her to believe. And for that she was secretly thankful.

"After I was discharged from the infirmary, I didn't have my backpack with me so I went back to Instructor Kolp's classroom to see if it was there because I needed it for my third period class. When I got there, I was told that another classmate had taken it for me. I was lucky to get it back a lot later but it was only because a friend of mine managed to get it out of the student's gym locker and happened to give it to Squall who found me. But by the time I got it back from Squall, it was already too late to go to class. The thing is that I know that the student who originally took it had no intention of giving it back to me."

"Hm. This is a serious matter; I'll have to look into this. What was the student's name?"

"Natalia Piers."

"I see. For the moment I won't reprimand you for your unjustified absence until I have a talk with both Instructor Kolp and Instructor Reiyn. Depending on what I'm told, I may see fit to still punish you for the absence, is that understood?"

Rinoa nodded in comprehension, got up and quietly strode out of the office altogether. Once she made it to the elevators however, she hesitated when it came to pressing the down button. Combative thoughts soon duked it out inside her head.

'_Maybe I should wait for him._'

'_No, maybe I shouldn't. He'll probably think that I waited around so that we'll purposely come back together and make some kind of scene._'

'_No. I've stop doing that, I've got to be assertive about this. I'm going to end up confusing people if I keep on seesawing like a doormat._'

In the end, she never poked that button, opting to walk back and plunk herself down on the floor near the office's massive doors.

"_Squall..."_

...What she _didn't_ expect was to be able to effortlessly and inadvertently eavesdrop through heavy oak doors like some kind of spy or even a ninja. Then her bubble burst soon after upon one simple realization — she hadn't closed the door properly when she'd left and the budding exchange was made audible via a small gap. Rinoa tried her best to shut out the noise by cupping her hands over her ears but to no avail. The headmaster's oddly sympathetic tone and use of his Squall first name over his surname was too alluring to ignore, considering that he had skipped most of the day whereas she'd only missed part of Gym. Not to mention it was hard to turn away when there seemed to be constant alarm bells ringing her head about his past as of late. The signs were becoming more difficult to ignore. His hands didn't seem as clean from this unnamed scandal as they once appeared.

In the end, she couldn't help herself. Curiosity was getting the best of her. She was only human.

"..._I'm very disappointed by your actions today. You had been making so much progress since the last string of unjustified absences in September; I hope this isn't a relapse._"

Rinoa felt a slight pang in her chest. She couldn't help but relate and empathise with what Squall must have been feeling after hearing the whole, _'I'm disappointed in you'_ spiel Cid was giving him right now. The feeling echoed far too closely to the countless guilt trips she'd endured over the last couple of years. But even though the headmaster's words sprouted feelings of empathy inside of her for Squall, it had also managed to pique her curiosity as well. She would have never guessed that he used to be a chronic class cutter.

"..._No sir. Today wasn't a relapse. It was...completely unrelated. I'll take full responsibility for my actions. ...Whatever punishment you see fit is fine." _

Rinoa at almost rendered speechless after hearing Squall speak. He sounded...so defeated, so lifeless, so dead inside, so...much like she did at one point.

"_Very well. I'll expect you to spend two after-school detentions this Thursday and Friday, same place as last time. Is that understood?"_

Squall replied with a quiet, _"Yes."_

"_You may go back to class now."_

After Cid had said this, Rinoa got up but kept her position near the door instead of moving towards the elevator door. It wasn't long before Squall pushed past the door and spotted her there.

"I hope you didn't mind me waiting here for you."

Following a passive shrug, he started walking towards the elevator. As she followed him however, it became more evident that he was slipping off in his own little insular world again, becoming more detached from the real world in that short span of time. Rinoa secretly bit her lip when she was the one who had to push the elevator's down button. Happening twice in one day whereas he'd never shown this kind of behaviour before? Was this the kind of person he really was? Or was it the other way around?

After they entered inside the elevator when the doors opened, Rinoa _accidentally _pressed the button for ground floor. When he didn't notice, that's when she had enough. She couldn't take it, she needed to know.

"Squall?"

Fortunately, it appeared to be a little more responsive to the sound of her voice. From his leaning position against one of the elevator's walls, he looked up at her. He didn't say anything, but having his attention was good enough.

"I just pressed the button for the ground floor and you didn't even notice. It's the second time today where I've noticed that you were in your own little world and quite honestly, I'm worried."

He ruffled his hair a little and rubbed his eyes. "You're looking into this too much, I'm just...tired."

"No Squall." she said firmly. "You're not tired, you sound dead inside. And as much as I'd hate to say this, with everything that's been happening lately...you're making it too hard for me to believe nothing happened. I can't ignore the signs anymore."

He snorted. "...So you've finally decided to believe her?"

Rinoa shook her head. "No. I haven't. But...I believe that whatever it is you did do has hurt her enough to say all those crazy things. I still don't know what '_that_' is exactly but every clue, every hint, every sign I got...it all came from you. You gave yourself away little by little."

Squall solemnly glared at her. "If you have any respect for me, you'll stop asking about this right now."

Rinoa shook her head again. "No. Ever since I kissed you you've been acting different and now it's becoming painfully obvious that something's bothering you _**a lot**_. You need to let this out." she implored. "You're the one whose going to have a mental breakdown if you keep it all bottled inside. Not me."

"My problems will be my own burden, nobody else's." he spat. "And it's going to stay that way."

Rinoa let out an ironic laugh. "You know what?" She pressed another button to stop the doors from opening again. "I wrote that in a journal once. Word for word. _'My problems will be my own burden, nobody else's.'" _she repeated. _"_I know how it feels to be stuck in a world where you feel like you can't tell anyone that you screwed up because you think that no one will understand. But I've come to learn that there will always be someone who'll understand. And believe it or not, you were that _'someone' _for me."

He looked at her with a perplexed expression and his formerly-angry tone mellowed some. "...But I didn't say anything."

"No, but you didn't judge me. And you didn't leave when you could have. I...really appreciated that. It made me feel better."

"...You're not going to be able to do the same." he shot back skeptically.

"You don't know that Squall. Please, give me a chance."

Squall walked over and pressed the button responsible for keeping the doors shut. He turned on a dime soon after to lock eyes with her. The intensity of his gaze was almost too much for Rinoa to bear. "You claim to have nearly no idea of what I did, what _do _you know?" he asked sharply. Rinoa knew this to be a test of some kind. One she probably had to pass before he'd say anything, _if_ anything at all. With all her memories of his odd behaviour at her disposal, she answered him to the best of her abilities.

"You coincidentally shut your laptop when a song called 'Iris' popped up while you were searching for songs, so I assume that means something because you took an hour to write something after I told you about that rumour involving her, especially when I know that you can write messages that were just as long a lot faster."

Rinoa took calming breath before she continued. "When I was throwing up at your house, I overheard your mom asking you if there was something you had to tell her because neither of you could handle what happened in August. And then I pieced that together with what you said that thing about your mom assuming that we'd done something together just like my mom had when you came over to give me my homework. So...with all that and the way you've been acting, can you blame me for starting to draw my own conclusions?"

His face turned sullen and he let out a long-drawn sigh. Rinoa figured that she must have passed whatever his criteria were.

"...So what are you assuming the conclusion is here?"

"I'm not sure. Either you had a close call like I did or...Iris is or was..." Rinoa hesitated. It was so hard saying the words, they didn't seem right. They felt foreign on her tongue. "-Hyne, I'm sorry, I don't want to say it in case I'm completely wrong and there's a perfectly logical explanation for all of this."

This time, neither teenager pushed the button to keep the doors closed; they quietly walked out of elevator even though they were on the wrong floor. Squall seemed to be aimlessly walking back to the place where they went when they skipped Gym. Worried, Rinoa followed him. Halfway past the open section; the silent barrier they'd built between them was breached.

"...Nothing ever has a perfectly logical explanation." he stated.

Rinoa looked at him with concern. Even though he was still looking forwards and not at her, she still kept her gaze on him. "Squall...please stop walking away from me. I'm not asking you to bear your soul to me, I just want to-"

Without warning, she wrapped her arms tightly around his waist with the side of her head pressed against his right shoulder blade when she'd grown frustrated with him ignoring her. Squall stopped almost instantly and tried to pry her off but to no avail.

"_Will you_...get off..._of_ _me?_" he protested as he fidgeted and writhed.

This only achieved to make her squeeze harder. The warm rush of the dorm hallway's heating flooded their senses yet again.

"No...you need this. It's for your own good. Calm down..._don't_... please don't fight it."

"I can't..." he continued to weakly argue, "...Please, stop touching me. It...it isn't helping."

Squall finally managed to separate her arms and free himself from her hug. Just when she thought he was going to leave, he took a step only to turn around and catch her eye with a pained look in his eyes, the very same one he sported before and after they'd kissed last week. There was an eerie silence developed between them before Rinoa found the courage to break it.

"Squall, I want to share something with you just so...you know that you're not the only one who feels like they've... screwed up big time." Her breathing hitched a little. "You know what you ended up finding out about yesterday?"

He said a nearly inaudible '_yes_'.

"The reason why I went to the doctor's wasn't to get rid of it. I went there to find out if I was pregnant after Ivy, that girl who gave you the backpack, confronted me about not looking or acting like myself and I...ended up finding out that I'd already lost it because of my poor health. And even though I wouldn't have been ready for it in the first place, I felt...I felt so horrible for killing a life without even knowing it."

Rinoa closed her eyes, fleetingly covering them both with the palm of her right hand. After a moment had passed, she lifted her palm away and reopened them. Looking at him in eyes again, she took a deep and stabilizing breath. She had the beginnings of a bittersweet smile on her lips.

"Rinoa..." There was an almost solemn quality to his timbre. "...you're crying."

"_O-oh_._..I am?_" she stammered. Rinoa wiped away the meandering tears with one deft wipe of her hand. "I'm sorry...I had no idea that'd it feel...so liberating to...finally tell someone."

"_I'm glad I could do that for you then._" he wistfully replied in a tone unlike his own before averting his eyes and turning away from her. "_I..._" He froze right then and there and looked back at her; his own cerulean eyes glistening a little behind his complex stare. Rinoa gave him a reassuring and warm nod.

"Go ahead Squall...I'm listening."

Slowly, but surely, he finally came around and continued what he'd started. "_I.._._had a daughter._"

In spite of all the mental preparation she'd done in her head prior to this, Rinoa's heart skipped a couple of beats.

"So your little girl..." she stumbled, "...you had her with Iris?"

He nodded. "We'd...been in a relationship for over a year before it happened. ...No one knew about it because...I was never outwardly affectionate."

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. "So...Nat's rumour was-"

"—Only accurate about the timing. ...Everything else must have been made up to spite me." He looked away and sighed. "Sometime after Iris must have found out, she had become increasingly distant and eventually started avoiding me. ...I didn't know for the longest time because she always wore oversized hooded sweatshirts."

"So...what did you do once you found out?"

"I tried talking to her but she kept on pushing me away...for a reason I still don't know. ...I eventually gave up."

"...Maybe she didn't want to force you to grow up?"

He listlessly shrugged. "...There's no point in guessing Rinoa. What's past is past."

"Um...fair enough." she awkwardly mumbled. "I hope you don't mind me asking so many questions but...if Iris purposely stayed away from you, how could you have known that you had a daughter?"

"...I'd received a phone call August 22nd to come down to the hospital. Shortly after I got there, I found out that she'd been born that morning." Squall took a moment's pause before continuing. "...The only reason why I was notified was because there had been a complication. ...She went into premature labour and couldn't get to the hospital in time."

Rinoa gasped. "You mean she...?"

He let out a self-depreciating laugh. His expression took a turn for the worst almost instantaneously. His eyes were devoid of any light, the corners of his lips tugged downward into a tortured grimace – he looked like death warmed over. "...So _now_ do you see why I'm so incredibly fucked up?"

"I...had no idea that..."

He cut her off. "Don't. Please don't."

"I'm sorry...it's just that I can't imagine how hard it must be to raise a child all by yourself."

"I can't either." he bitterly added. "My daughter, she...passed away the night after."

Rinoa was at a loss for words. All she could do was hug him like there was no tomorrow.

--—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments –** Well...I hope you guys aren't going to bury me for that one. In my original plans, I'd planned to save that for the very end, but I'm not known for sticking to my guns as far as planning goes. So the real answer to that poll question was none of the above, or for those who insist I stick to a poll answer, '_I have no freakin' clue._' was the closest.

In all honesty though, I hope that caught you guys off-guard. I was purposely intending to mislead you into adopting a black-and-white line of thinking. Either it was or wasn't true, that kind of thing.

Anyways, drop me line if you have time. I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this one.

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbits – **As you can probably assume, Iris was intentionally named after the song I used in this chapter and it was also the same song Rinoa was referencing. The line, "I hope you didn't mind me waiting here for you," was a partial reference to the promise scene in VIII. The arc with Squall's secret wasn't in the original plans. It was inspired after a Chapter IV review wondering if there was more to the Paul/Squall mix-up.


	33. Chapter XXXII – Distractions

**Author's Notes - **Well, it seems like there seemed to be mixed opinions on the last chapter, so I feel like there are some apologies in order for those who felt let down from the 'big reveal' as it were. I would have liked to have revealed that one a lot earlier to avoid this kind of disappointment, but I couldn't. The main problem here is the disparity between the actual time lapse and the perceived time lapse. What I mean there is that with the number of chapters there are, it would be normal for people to assume that a lot of time has passed when it actually hasn't. A prime example is Chapters 28 through 32 (this one); they only span over a single day. So therein lies the problem; I didn't want the secret to be revealed too fast as far the actual timeline was concerned. I still think it was done too fast in that respect, but...I probably would have pissed off even _more_ people.

And for those of you who are wondering why I've stopped allowing anonymous reviews, let's just say a certain person used a review to comment on something that had nothing to do with the story that should have been done via private messaging or e-mail. And to _whom _it may concern; if you don't like something that I've done, I understand because I'm obviously not perfect, but if you're going to do that, don't use the anonymity to hide behind your words. I apologize for having to do this here, but I obviously can't contact you any other way.

Sorry about that one guys, it just had to be said.

Anyways, I'd better get on with this. I'm not going to lie and come up with some elaborate excuse; I just wasn't in the mood to write. I might be a little rusty so watch out for that too.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXXII – Distractions**

_-_

_Even the best fall down sometimes,  
Even the stars refuse to shine,  
Out of the back you fall in time,  
I somehow find,  
You and I collide._

**_-Howie Day, Collide.  
_**

_-_

_Tuesday, January 11__th__ —_

_I'm stuck at a crossroads here. The question that's been bothering my mind for the past while was finally answered, along with some other indirect ones related to it (what 22-08 meant and the "she" he was talking about in his sleep) and yet...I feel like more questions have come up because I got the answer. I honestly don't know how we're going to carry on the act now. I mean, the kind of thing I did right before I found out... I don't think I could do anymore because I know what he's been through especially since I have no idea if his situation was closer to mine or Ivy's as far as birth control (or lack there of) went. I'd be more likely to believe that he was just very unlucky like Paul and Ivy, but if it happened because the 'moment' caught up with him like it had for me...I wouldn't want to be the one to remind him of what can happen with a few well-placed touches. I guess I'll have to work around it._

_But what was going on in his head when he offered to fake this relationship though? That's what I really want to know. Did he honestly think we could get by without actually showing any kind of affection or knowing little to next to nothing about me? Well, I suppose that were both stupid and naive for thinking that._

_Hyne, why am I being so cool and analytical about things when that's not how I really feel at all? What I feel like is an immature little girl. I go to him to fix what people think of me meanwhile he's had to cope with his daughter and former girlfriend's deaths without the luxury of being able to tell anyone. I guess he was right in a way; maybe I am that superficial girl that he accused me of being at the beginning of this. God, I don't know anymore, this is so confusing. _

_...I can't write anymore. I need to do something better with my time. _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_**Knock! Knock!**_

When the door eventually swung open, the person directly behind it genuinely did a double-take. Rinoa wasn't surprised by this by any means, she was simply grateful that he was home.

"...What are you doing here?" Squall skeptically questioned with furrowed eyebrows and everything.

Clad in snow gear up to the nines, Rinoa gave him a bit of a sheepish grin. She hadn't called in advance or anything, it was all spur of the moment thinking that led her here. Unfortunately, one of the things her on-the-fly plans didn't include a good excuse.

"Um, I...don't know. I just...wanted to pop by."

This admission didn't help his eyebrows any. "If this sudden idea to come over here had anything to do with what I said...I don't need the pity, especially if my parents see you. ...I'm not in the mood to make excuses if they ask why you're here."

Rinoa grimaced. "I'm sorry...I really don't know what I was thinking. I had no homework so I started writing random things in my notebook and the next thing I knew, I got sick of that so I ended up here." She paused for a brief moment. "Do you think you could spare a couple of minutes to walk around with me if I can't come in? I think we need to clear a few things up."

He stood there silently, probably mulling over all of the possibilities in his head. After another moment's hesitation, he took a sideways step and grabbed a black winter coat with some abstract crimson designs on the back and one sleeve. It wasn't long before he put it on along with a pair of heavy-duty boots, walked past the door and shut it.

After she had purposely waited until they'd stepped off the porch and plowed through the snow-encrusted driveway to get to the cleared sidewalk to make sure that neither of his parents would overhear her, Rinoa drew a quick breath and started talking about what was on her mind. She watched him bury his hands in his pockets as he surveyed the trampled layer of snow as it crackled beneath his boots, walking beside her.

"I know that we didn't talk after what happened this afternoon but...if you don't want to go through this silly charade with me anymore, I'm fine with that. When I got home, I starting thinking a lot about what you said and it really made me take another look at this. And well...I realized that this whole thing was immature to begin with." When he casted a sidelong glance at her, this prompted her to continue. "I'll still help you with your Lit stuff though."

He looked down at the ground again and sighed. Something about his behaviour told her that he was anticipating this kind of conversation from her. They both stopped; the veil of the casual winter stroll instantly cast aside.

"Listen...I've been dealing with this since last August, not since this afternoon. These things...they don't suddenly start affecting people the moment they've told someone. I'll be fine. I'm not a porcelain doll."

Rinoa frowned. "I know you aren't but...what if—"

"—I'll deal with it _if_ it happens, alright?" he tiredly countered. "Don't bother with the '_what if's_'. It's pointless to try and predict the future. You're never right anyway."

As much as the bluntness of his barb stung, he had a point.

"You're right; I shouldn't make silly predictions like that but the truth is that...I just don't know how I should take this." Rinoa timidly admitted. "I don't know the limit of what's comfortable for you to do and I don't want to cross that line. The last thing I want is to remind you of anything you don't want to be reminded of. Not that I didn't care before, but, I thought that your personality was the only reason for that, not because something had happened..."

Right at the moment Rinoa was going to continue the sentence she had let die on her lips, he had cut her off.

"...You're not going to remind me of her if that's what you're worried about." he asserted. "You're two very different people personality-wise and appearance-wise. ...The only thing you had in common is brown eyes."

The teenager awkwardly bit the inside of her lip. '_...That was a little direct,' _she mused, _'...I didn't realize that he even knew that I had brown eyes._'

As if there'd been an evil sprit possessing her, Rinoa suddenly felt the urge to start walking along the sidewalks a couple of moments later. Two steps behind her, he followed.

"So..." she uncomfortably started, looking back at him, "...just to make it clear, you _do_ want to continue this charade with me?"

He nodded.

"...Alright then_._" she affirmed to herself more than anything else. "So...it'd probably be a good idea to take everyone's reactions after we came back to class in consideration, right?"

"...Probably." he half-heartedly agreed. "I don't...think we can keep this neutral like we'd planned though."

"Yeah...not after all of those stares we got when we came back twenty minutes late. That pretty much made this 'relationship' look like the worst-kept secret in Balamb Garden's history." she sheepishly mumbled, realizing that this was quickly becoming a mockery of all of the little _'fake relationship tactics'_ talks they've had in the past. "Is there a specific way you want to do this?"

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me. Whatever works."

"Okay...but we have to narrow it down somehow." she elaborated. "I know that acting neutral is out of the question and so is laying it on too thick. Maybe it'd work if you'd...I don't know, just stay close to me?"

"That...didn't seem to work today." he pointed out.

"But, they weren't looking for the clues. Now that they might be..." Rinoa stopped in mid-sentence. "...Hyne, I really don't know. I don't even know why we plan anything. It always goes south when we do."

Following that comment, Squall seemed to be looking at her expectantly as if he was waiting for her to take back and eat her words and start working on another plan. The moment never came. Rinoa had been serious about what she had said. There was a growing allure about not having it all organized. With no plans, there wouldn't be any expectations, preset standards, objectives or goals. Their success could be judged with a more open perspective rather than be measured, scrutinized and end up being ultimately disappointed with the shortcomings.

After a few moments' of near-silence, with only the crackles of their footsteps accenting the noiseless, snowy scenery, he finally stopped holding out for a Plan B and broke the eerie stillness himself.

"...Would you rather follow my lead if you're still uncomfortable?"

Rinoa blinked. Hard. '_Squall taking initiative about the fake relationship instead of avoiding it...am I dreaming? Or has he gone crazy?' _

"...Yeah, I suppose that'd be a good idea. I have a question though."

"That's...fine."

At the end of the street, they turned around to head back home. Squall kept his gaze on her rather than look forward as he walked. Rinoa could have sworn that she was imagining things for the second time in such a short while. He looked apprehensive, yet surprised at the same time. Had he expected her to say no?

"..Did you have anything in mind or you just going to play this by ear?"

"I have an idea, but it's nothing concrete." Right then, the cocktail of expressions he had on his face earlier seemed to have been replaced with a mildly curious look. "...Why did you ask?"

"No particular reason, I just wanted to have an idea of what to expect if you had something in mind, that's all."

"Expect to see me look like I've had a personality transplant." he said self-depreciatingly.

Rinoa knit her brows in confusion. "Huh, what do you mean?"

They both stopped and Rinoa kept her eyebrows knit in confusion. Snow started to gracefully descend from the heavens and onto them and the sidewalks stretching out in both directions and small gusts of wind started to pick up and blow more powder-like snow at them. An errant snowflake landed her nose. It stayed there for awhile before melting — that's when Squall had decided to start. He had just wiped away a random snowflake from his own nose.

"We can't afford to have this get any worse than it already is on account of my pride anymore. And if this is the only way to get the results we need, then...so be it. I never cared about what people thought then, I shouldn't care now."

"Squall, you don't have to do things you're uncomfortable with just for the sake of keeping this up, I'll...we'll find another way. We just have to rough it out a little while to get a feel for what works. Spending a few days tweaking our act won't kill us."

"...I doubt that you meant that after today's mess." he pointedly said.

'_Ugh, I can't lie and say I don't agree with that logic._' she mused. '_Still, I don't want him acting outside of his comfort zone..._'

"Okay, you're right, I didn't really believe that last part but...I just don't want you acting like something you're not just for this. Isn't there a way to still pull this off without having you act like you _'had a personality transplant'_?"

"If my other relationship was any indicator of this then...I can't do this by acting like myself." he admitted. "If things hadn't exploded the way they did today, we could have. But since people are looking for concrete signs, I can't give that to them."

Rinoa sighed. "You should have a little more confidence in yourself Squall. You're not the person you were two or maybe even a year ago, no one is. I'm sure that you can try something that you won't be uncomfortable with."

"It's not worth the gamble." he countered. "If I hold you back and this perceived relationship folds because of me...it'll be exactly what _she _wanted. And I don't want her to win."

"But—"

Squall stopped her from talking right then and there. "Please, stop. ..._I-_ we, can't risk failure here, it needs to work out." Then it just came out. "Rinoa...I need the distraction."

Rinoa bit back a frown. She hadn't been expecting to hear that at all. In fact, she'd expected the opposite before this walk ever took place. She'd always assumed that the act was to assure that she'd be mentally able to fulfill her end of the bargain. Then again, maybe he decided to roll with today's disaster and turn it into another outlet to distract himself with. Regardless, she could relate that much to the behaviour. She'd been the same way when it happened to her, only instead of submerging herself in distractions; she secluded herself from the world, numbing it away until her friends provided her with a suitable diversion.

"...Okay. But if I let you do this, will you promise to try to keep the out of character stuff to the bare minimum of what you feel you need to do?"

He nodded and they started to walk again. "That's...fine."

"So, um...did you actually have anything in mind for this that you can tell me?" she inquired. "I think the last thing I need is to go, _'Huh?'_ or do something bone-headed and have it blow up in your face."

He casually shrugged. "I...was thinking that acting somewhat protective." Then he hesitantly paused and looked at her. "...Would it work?"

Rinoa had to smile at the shy inflections of his voice. It was cute. "Yeah, that's fine. You strike me as one of those types anyway." she added. "And I don't think it'll seem that fishy to the others. Was there anything else you thought of that might actually seem _off_ to the others?"

He shrugged again. "I don't know. How much did you want to annoy her?"

"Ooh. You're mean." she light-heartedly chided.

"Mean's got nothing to do with it Rinoa. It's about making things even." he heatedly reasoned. "How do you think I feel after what she did?"

"I can imagine you'd be as mad, if not any madder than I was when my father turned into an insensitive blabbermouth all of a sudden."

"...Now do you see why I don't care about how we do this anymore?"

"I get where you're coming from, but, I never pegged you as the vengeful type."

"I've said this before, but...I don't get angry very often."

"I know. Just warn me when you're gonna go all cuddly on me, okay?"

As soon as the words left her mouth, Squall rolled his eyes. "_Very funny._"

"Well...I didn't think it was funny, I was being serious. I assumed '_personality transplant_' involved random hugs and kisses."

"...Not really."

"Then I guess you're going to look like you had a '_partial personality transplant'_ then." she quipped, pulling out the bunny-ear quotation mark gestures for the three words. "...Unless if you're only saying that because you're afraid of what I'd do if you did that."

The minute twitch she noticed at the corner of his mouth as she turned to look at him as he walked on was enough to validate her words, even though he was still looking forward. "It's okay Squall. Do what you feel you have to do. I won't mind."

He turned to look at her, his eyes piercing into her soul with those eternally-burdened blue eyes of his, ones she now knew weren't as tough and cold as she once thought. Just then, he unexpectedly took her hand and pulled her in to stop her from walking any further though the gesture was moot. His eyes would have already achieved that in a split second's time. If it was at all possible, he looked even more pained in the split-second difference.

"I need your scarf for a moment." he asked.

"Um...sure."

After a little hesitation amid the snowfall and brisk outdoor temperatures, Rinoa let her coat's hood down and undid the loose knot at the side and gave the scarf to him, though she questioned why he had asked for it in the first place. Despite what he was wearing, or lack there of, he didn't look at that cold. What other possible use could he have for the knitted band of fabric? Snowball slingshot?

In a second's time, she found out why he'd asked. Apparently the slingshot idea was just as unlikely a notion, though it was because of completely different reasons.

Right now, with the scarf temporarily discarded by his feet, Squall had this look in his eye that she couldn't even begin to describe. Never mind that, Rinoa couldn't even form a single thought concerning the next few moments as he had unexpectedly closed the gap between them and swiftly pulled her in close, with their lips centimetres away from contact. Hyne, her head felt like it was swimming in an Olympic-sized pool as his eyes closely surveyed hers, waiting for him to finally do the deed for God-knows what reason. Whether the reaction was voluntary, her legs started to quake and tremble, threatening to stop supporting her weight anymore. Falling backwards into the bank of snow behind her seemed like a probable likelihood.

Then he did it.

Softly brushing his lips against hers among the falling snowflakes, it was reminiscent of the kiss she'd given him last week but, on the other hand...if that was his intent, he was also failing miserably. The kiss was beginning to take a life of its own, inflected by neediness, infused with melancholy and peppered with longing. However, she knew that those feelings weren't directed at her, she was the fodder to fuel his imagination for what he truly wanted, what he couldn't have. Still, she allowed him to go further as he unwittingly deepened the embrace.

If he wouldn't allow her to help him right now, the least she could do is offer him this momentary respite, this momentary distraction. Rinoa was almost certain that his original intention went awry because if he was testing her to see if she meant what she'd said, well, she was one hundred percent sure that he wouldn't do this sort of thing in school.

Not even if he _**really**_ wanted to annoy Nat.

'_I must be reminding him more of her than I thought..._'

Just when it seemed like an eternity had passed, she softly pushed him away, wary of what could happen if her legs did give out and bring them down to the snow bank together in the process. Looking into those eyes of his, she could sense the disgust and pain flowing through their blue depths. It was truly astonishing to notice the parallels to the persona he had in that one dream now.

And although she would never admit this to anyone but herself, when he let go of his better judgement and emotions, he was just as good a kisser as her dream's counterpart. But now was not the time to be thinking such thoughts.

Taking a step backwards, he bent over and picked up her scarf, dusting off all of the errant snow on it when he was at full height again. He handed it to her and, not even a moment later, his eyes met up with hers again.

"We both know of each other's past and...this isn't an option now." he sombrely admitted before walking back to his house again.

Scarf in hand, Rinoa stood there, utterly bewildered.

...Had she subconsciously returned his advance?

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Ah, you've heard enough apologies from me to last you guys a lifetime so I won't bother. All I hope for is that you guys liked it though it **definitely **wasn't worth the wait.

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbits – **Basically Squall's jacket was a reference to his Kingdom Hearts design, though it's not exact given that it's a winter coat. The personality transplant was a reference to a library scene in Breaking Free. I think the Olympics reference is self-explanatory though. :D


	34. Chapter XXXIII – Out In The Open

**Author's Notes **– Just got to clarify one thing since it probably was a little confusing. Last chapter's kiss was meant to be a test for when Rinoa said, "It's okay Squall. Do what you feel you have to do. I won't mind." in regards to the act (which could possibly involve kisses/hugs/etc.) but the problem was that the feelings for his former girlfriend got in the way and interjected themselves into it. Notice how he was looking into her eyes before he did it and that's the only thing she and Iris had in common? So anyways, it's not a matter of him liking Rin and finally being up front about it, it's a matter of the distraction of homework not being enough.

You know how it is when someone's on medication for a while and they build up a resistance so they need to take more so that it has the same effects? It's like that. So anyways, what Squall means when he says, "We both know of each other's past and...this isn't an option now," it's that it wouldn't be wise to fake those things because of the things in their past still affecting them.

Whether you want to include Rinoa's past is purely up to interpretation though.

Anyways, other than that, I think that the last chapter went well, so I think it would be best to continue on that note, huh? After all, I can't make you guys wait another three months. ;D

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXXIII – Out In The Open**

_-_

_I am damaged at best,  
Like you've already figured out,  
I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing,  
With a broken heart that's still beating,  
In the pain, there is healing,  
In your name, that finds meaning,  
So I'm holding on.  
_

_**-Lifehouse, Broken.**_

_-_

With the door shut and locked, Rinoa gazed at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, looking at the scene before her. Clad in her pyjamas, she cupped the bottom of her partially-rounded stomach, the one she created with the aid of a few carefully layered pieces of clothing tucked underneath, creating the illusion of the stomach she would have had in a different circumstances.

She wondered about the trivial obstacles her alternate self would have faced by now. Would she have already had the talk with Cid, brought on by her suspiciously-expanding midsection? Thought of baby names? Bought her first pair of elastic-waist maternity jeans? There were so many silly little questions in her head, but none that mattered. It hurt to think of the more serious ones.

Rinoa dug the clothes out of there. The exercise wasn't helping. It wasn't that she was out to depress herself with these possibilities, but rather trying to recreate the same types of thoughts that must have been going on inside of Squall's after what happened today. How tortured was he on the inside to involuntarily make the mistake of interjecting his feelings for his former girlfriend into the kiss that was probably meant to gage her words? That was the concept she was trying to re-enact. And so far, it was to no avail. It wasn't that she was over it; it was that there was no suitable real-life substitute that seemed to parallel her being Squall's ersatz substitution for Iris.

And with a sigh, she gave up and headed to her room for the night. There was no use to continue this experiment anymore. There was school tomorrow and it was already midnight.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Wednesday, January 12__th __—_

_As I look at the clock and notice that it's already 1:30, I'm not surprised that I can't sleep. I think I saw it coming after I stopped writing in this journal a few hours ago. It's one of those days._

_But I think the main offender here doesn't have to do with Squall. It has more to do with the missing piece of the puzzle at the heart of this — Iris Piers. With all of this stuff going on, I couldn't help myself; I had to dig up something. Obviously, with no one to ask (I assume everyone's fast asleep here), I resorted to the online yearbook Balamb Garden has after remembering what Adrienne had told me awhile ago — she'd mentioned that the Garden had too many students to make actual yearbooks worth selling (it would take too much paper and ink to keep costs down, I'd imagine), so they put it online for those who had a Garden access code. I had skimmed through the later editions a month ago when she'd first talked about it, so it wasn't too hard to find what I was looking for. _

_...And Squall wasn't kidding when he said that she wasn't anything like me. _

_The first page I looked at was their Grade Eleven yearbook. Squall looked very much the same save for a few minor changes, only his hair wasn't as long and he was about two inches shorter, maybe a little less square in the shoulders. His face looked more youthful and less tired; his eyes looked a little brighter. But Iris...I can't even begin to describe how pretty she was in those yearbook pictures. She had soft, oval face, long dark blonde hair, a very trim athletic figure and dark brown almond-shaped eyes like mine. But the thing that I noticed the most was the big friendly smile she had on whenever someone took her picture, whether it was for a sports-related picture, a snapshot with a bunch people who might have been her friends, or even her school photo. I couldn't help but imagine that she was a very warm person even though I've never known her._

_After that, I checked out last year's yearbook and noticed that she was even prettier then. I think that the maturity she must have gained over the Grade 11 summer brought it out in her face and figure because she wasn't just cute like the other year, she was stunning – something I know that's never going to happen to me because I know that I cap out at 'cute' at best (unfortunately, I didn't get all of my mom's genes). _

_Um...getting back on the subject again, in this year, Squall looked closer to the person he is now, the only thing missing this time around was the deadness in his eyes and the eternally-tired look – the rest was more or less there, well...minus the few extra inches on that mop of his. Either way, as the time passed, judging by the different events the photos showed, the more shy Iris's smiles were in the random shots taken of her post winter break – Squall was nowhere to be seen to judge his expressions._

_Without any sports photos after February, the pictures of her were far and few between. The hoodies were there, but if Squall hadn't ever told me about it, I wouldn't have ever guessed that she was pregnant at all. The only picture I might have picked up on that was the very last photo of her. Not because I noticed a belly poking out (despite the fact she must have been around about 3 or 4 months along in the picture), but by how she had her hands over top of her stomach in the way I always see pregnant women do, dressed in a huge, paint-splotched white t-shirt with Nat smiling with her, wearing the exact same kind of plain, yet colour-specked shirt. This made them look like twins rather than cousins when they must have been working on the half-painted café backdrop behind them. _

_Hyne, I almost wish I didn't look at those pictures. It's not like her death was any easier to swallow when Squall said those words, but after looking at the photos and getting to know that little bit, it's hitting harder than I thought it would have. Or maybe it's just a delayed reaction, I'm not sure anymore. All I know is that if I keep writing about this I might end up smudging the ink with tears. _

_It's safe to say that I honestly don't know what to expect tomorrow though. I know he's not going to be like he was at the end of the walk, but if the distraction schoolwork is giving him is not enough anymore and he's using this too, who knows what he might try to do to stop thinking about her? No...never mind, I won't go there. I trusted his judgement before and that's not going to change. This was **exactly** the kind of thinking he talked about earlier. I'm not going to fall into that trap. In spite of all this, I know that he's still a very rational person. He won't abuse this. I'm just hoping that it'll be enough to get him through this rough patch. _

_I don't want to see him in anymore pain than he's already in. He doesn't deserve that. It's bad enough that he's had to stoop so much lower and make due with me today. Come to think of it, I can't even imagine of what Raine thinks of this relationship. I might have to ask him when things have calmed down. In the meantime, I should avoid dying my hair blonde. I think he'd lose it then._

_I just looked at my clock and it says 2:00 now. I'd better stop writing now and try to go to bed. I might get five hours sleep if I'm really lucky._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_**Knock! Knock!**_

Rinoa turned over and put the covers over her head. Whose bright idea was it to be knocking at her door so...early? It couldn't have been more than 6:30 at best judging by the intensity, or lack there of, of the sun's rays warming up her eyelids.

"_Mom...let me sleep. I'm tired._" she yawned through the comforter, curled up in a little ball. The door opened, much to her dismay. Grappling with the inevitable defeat, Rinoa groggily rolled to the other side to see the time on the alarm clock and the door.

She nearly bolted out of bed. And not just because of the time on the clock.

"...What are _you _doing here?" she yelped, trying to cover her ratty pyjamas with the covers.

He furrowed his brows. "Your mom came in here a half hour ago to wake you up. She thought you would have changed by now." he replied in a cool, even tone.

Rinoa blinked. "Okay, I probably fell asleep again but...that really doesn't explain why you're here."

He shrugged. "I assumed that it would have been a good idea to bring you to school for the charade so I sent you an e-mail. You never replied so I called your house this morning and your mother was okay with this."

She cast a glance at the doorway where he was standing. "Um...it's a good idea. I just...need to change and get ready." she semi-coherently mumbled. "Er...just out curiosity, how did you get my phone number?"

"Phone book."

"Oh."

Trying to slink away before it got anymore awkward, Rinoa swiftly got out of bed and made a beeline for her drawer and busied herself by digging through the tangles of clothes in there. As she dug for something suitable, yet light, in case if she was embarrassed to the point of giving off body heat, the room filled with a deathly silence. Remembering something, she turned around. He was still there at the doorway. If it were anyone else, she might have been annoyed, but seeing as it was Squall...she assumed that he was probably waiting for her to tell him what to do.

"I think it's too early in the morning for a peep show." she joshed, stifling a yawn at the same time. "I'll go in the bathroom to change. You can sit here on my computer chair while you're waiting."

Within moments, he was sitting on the chair and she was in the bathroom, trying to change quickly. The effort was relatively successful save for the thoughts in her mind bogging her down, namely about the person who was sitting in her room at the moment. While the act of bringing her to school was harmless and slightly ingenious to say the least, it was the _'at school'_ conclusion to that which was most bothersome in her head. It annoyed her not knowing what to expect, nagging her at every turn. Sure, she liked surprises but there was something to be said about a little heads up.

Sighing, she looked in the mirror and started dabbing on some make-up. Nearly a minute later, Rinoa blinked, realizing that she'd unwittingly put on more than usual. She had to laugh. Maybe, just maybe, her subconscious was finally starting to help her out with this act. In any case, she put away the cosmetics, gathered her pyjamas in her arms, opened the door and walked back to her room. Squall was still sitting on that computer chair, languidly staring at the patch of ceiling above him. He hadn't even noticed her come back into the room.

After haphazardly throwing her sleepwear on top of her bed's mottled covers and checking her backpack to make sure everything was in there, she glanced over at him again. He wasn't looking at the ceiling anymore, he was absent-mindedly staring at her computer's screensaver this time. Rinoa flinched. With the slightest nudge of her mouse, it would get rid of her flying toaster screensaver and he'd be able to see what she'd been up to, especially since she'd left it on that last picture of Iris and Nat. Not a good thing.

"...Squall?"

He turned around almost immediately. His arm brushed against the mouse in the process. Rinoa tensed up a little; the picture was visible amongst the glaring white background of the online year book.

"I'm done with everything. We can go now." she said, strapping on her backpack at the same time.

He got up from his chair and just when she thought she was safe, he turned to tuck the chair under the desk. His eyes met up with the photo at point-blank range. He froze for a second before walking away from it with elongated, but never awkward, strides. Rinoa followed him out of the room and shut the door. She was surprised he hadn't accused her of meddling in something she had nothing to do with.

Then again, he had no proof that she even knew what Iris looked like. There weren't any names attached to the picture.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Following a short hello and goodbye to her mother and bypassing breakfast altogether, as the clock's time was to blame, Rinoa now found herself in the passenger seat, buckling up in a new-looking light-blue sedan. Squall was just about ready to turn on the engine when he turned and looked at her, eyeing her bag.

"...You can put that in the back if you want." he suggested. Rinoa shook her head.

"No," she started, clutching the school bag, "I'll be fine."

With a quick nod, he started the engine, letting it idle for a few minutes to warm up. The radio automatically came on to some generic rock station. Rinoa was temped to ask if he wanted it off to talk but she kept her mouth shut, certain that he didn't share the notion of tepid conversation with her.

A minute later, he pulled out of the driveway. The clock on the dashboard indicated that they had a good half-an-hour to get to school and a good five minutes before her regular bus would show up in front of her driveway. Rinoa took a deep, yet silent breath. It would be the last five minutes of relative peace before things would start in full swing. The fact that she had no idea how that was going to materialize was still bothering her. Squall was still mum on the subject as ever.

'_Hyne, he's really sticking to his word._' she briefly thought. '_I just hope I don't blow it._'

Now on the snow-caked roads, Rinoa noticed his hand fiddle with the volume dial. He briefly glanced her way when he hit a red light. He was looking at the road when he spoke though, opting to look like he was having a conversation with the windshield.

"...Do you have any expectations of what's going to happen today?" he asked.

Rinoa nearly had a heart attack. For a second there, she thought that he was going to ask about the computer. She took an inaudible sigh of relief before answering.

"No...not really. I just know that, whatever we'll do...it'll make people notice this relationship. You've been so quiet about this so I don't know what to expect."

The light turned green, being the first one in his lane, Squall gently pressed on the gas after a quick scan of the intersection. He never followed up on what she said after he passed the lights. A minute later, he took an unexpected right turn. Rinoa furrowed her brows.

"Uh, Squall...you didn't have to make this turn. The fastest way to the school would have been to follow that road we were on."

"I know that much. I need to explain something without contending with the poor road conditions at the same time."

She grimaced. "We can't be late Squall, not after yesterday. We could get in even deeper trouble. You can explain this at school if you don't want to deal with driving in this crappy weather at the same time."

Right after Rinoa had voiced her concern, he made a right turn into a dead-end cul-de-sac, went around the bend and just when she thought he was going to turn left to backtrack, he parked on an empty stretch of road, halfway from the stop sign and circular curve of the roundabout. She was not impressed when the engine was turned off altogether.

"...Squall, I didn't hop in a car with you just to get in trouble, I was expecting to go to school on time, as _strange_ as that concept may seem because I'm not looking forward to jumping through hoops after Art is done. My parents aren't going to let you do this if we're late."

Calmly, he took the keys out of the ignition and looked her square in the eyes. "...If you let me explain, you might find out that you don't even have a class to be late for in the first place."

Rinoa raised her brows. "Um...I don't follow you. Where are you going with this?" she asked skeptically.

"I got an e-mail from the school saying that there's a last minute conference scheduled for today. A fair amount of instructors were asked to go. Garden couldn't arrange for substitutes for all of the affected classes so some have been cancelled. According to the list, we don't have History but we still have Lit and Gym. My first period is cancelled but I don't know about yours."

_'Okay, that makes sense.'_

"I have Art with Instructor Illione. Do you know if that's cancelled?"

He pulled out a folded scrap of paper and eyeballed it for half a minute before pocketing it and looking her way again. "It's cancelled."

"Okay, so what do we do then?"

"I was thinking of waiting around somewhere until the very last minute."

Rinoa started out by giving him a weird look. That is, until a bunch of light bulbs went off inside of the raven-haired girl's head. She had figured it out.

"_Oh_...so we come rushing into class together and grab some attention that way?"

He nodded. "That's...more-or-less what I had in mind."

"Okay...I can handle that." she affirmed. Squall put back the key in the ignition and turned on the car's engine again.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

With seconds to go, Rinoa pushed the limits of her physical capabilities to match Squall's longer strides. In spite of the fact that they had been waiting inside of school and not somewhere else, time had still found a way to escape the both of them. Well, more specifically, Rinoa had found a way to lull herself back to sleep and it had been awhile before Squall had perfected a system to avoid her errant swings. She was almost positive by the way he described it that she'd clocked him hard enough to leave bruises from at least four consecutive sleep-rousing attempts on his part.

Rinoa had to laugh at the irony, however. Whether he thought of this or not, Squall's ruse would '_prove_' two things respectively. Though she wasn't a chronic skipper or anything, she didn't necessarily put too much stock in a perfect school record as far as tardy slips and attendance went. She simply figured that as long as she got there and didn't make a huge scene, there was no harm or fowl in being a few minutes late. So, in essence, to actually rush in to catch the bell would be a bit of a switch. The same could be said for Squall too. If memory served, he was usually punctual when it came to coming to class.

When the bell sounded they were still a fair distance away with no chance of getting there within the next minute or two. As the bell's shrill tone pierced her ears, Rinoa stopped running altogether. The point was moot anyway. If they were going be late no matter what, she figured that it would be best to at least catch her breath.

"Squall," she called out, he stopped, turning to face her, "-there's no point in jogging anymore. We're going to be late no matter how fast we run."

When she caught up to him, he started walking in unison with her. Close enough in proximity to infer something without actually holding hands or showing any overt signs of affection.

Three minutes later, they'd reached the classroom. Rinoa took in a breath. This was it. There was no going back. And once Squall had opened the door, Rinoa took notice of the rows of students hunched over their desks, penciling in what seemed to be a pop quiz; students who were now taking notice of their collective presences in the doorway.

"_Can I help you both?_" a voice at the front barked. Rinoa almost did a double take. It wasn't the voice of Instructor Kolp, not by a long shot. ...Unless if she had smoked ten years' worth of cigarettes, gained thirty pounds and dyed her hair an unnatural shade of blonde the night before.

"No, we're just late ma'am." Rinoa squeaked.

The substitute tossed them a stern look. "Your names."

"Um...I'm Rinoa Caraway-Heartilly."

"Squall Leonhart." the voice behind her coldly intoned.

The sub still looked unimpressed. "And _what_ is your reason for being late?"

Squall shrugged. "...Didn't pay attention to the time."

"I hardly think that is a valid reason for being tardy _Mr. Leonhart_." she coarsely countered with emphasis on Squall's surname before turning her eyes on Rinoa. "Were you with Mr. Leonhart when he forgot to pay attention to the time Ms. Caraway-Heartilly, or do you have a proper justification for your tardiness?"

The teenager felt her legs turn into gelatine dessert under the pressure of the brusque words of Instructor Kolp's substitute and the students' collective gaze upon them. She couldn't seem to coax out the words she needed to say out of her mouth fast enough.

And it was at that moment where Squall decided to be her voice box.

"She was with me." he sharply answered. "And neither of us paid attention to the time if that's what you wanted to know."

"Young man, I don't appreciate the disrespectful tone of voice you've been using."

Squall shrugged again. "...It's the way I talk, I can't help it."

"You can and will if you plan on staying in this classroom for more than a few seconds."

Paying her no heed, he walked over to his seat and sat himself without as much as a single word. For some reason, this action got the sub in even more of a huff. Squall didn't even have the chance to take his coat off before she let that be known. Rinoa hadn't even moved from the doorway.

"I've had enough of the attitude Mr. Leonhart, report to Headmaster Cid office now."

'..._What in Hyne's name is her problem?_' the teenager thought. '_This is nuts._'

"He didn't even do anything," Rinoa argued, "—he just sat down for Hyne's sake!"

Now the squat woman turned on her. "Would you like to join your friend to Cid's office too?"

By this point, Squall had already vacated his seat and was on the way out. The only problem was that Rinoa was barring his path.

"I think I will." she hotly shot back, stepping aside to allow Squall a way to leave.

The only problem was that when she turned towards the hallway, he hadn't passed her; he had firmly stopped in front of the doorway.

"...To set the record straight, I'm not her friend."

"My sincere apologies then," the sub dryly added, "please go to the Headmaster's office with your _classmate_."

He scoffed. "Wrong again."

As she walked down the hallway with her partner in crime, all Rinoa could hear were the collective gasps.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments - **I'm gonna pretend I'm in a different time zone to imagine that I updated on Squall's birthday (going to the movies was to blame for the lateness). Hope you liked. :D

_-Emerald-Latias_


	35. Chapter XXXIV – The Obvious Secrets

**Author's Notes – **Nothing really to say, other than I hope that this updating streak sticks. Well, I guess there's nothing left to do except...write!

Oops, never mind. I forgot something.

...I'm accepting anonymous reviews again. I realized that it was a little harsh to block them all because of that one person, but consider it a warning. If you're gonna do a review anonymously, make sure it has to do with the story and _only _the story. If you need to talk about something else, my e-mail _is_ in my profile. So is the option to PM. Anything I consider irrelevant or a random plea to update (outside of the tagline of a review) will be deleted. I don't want to reach 300 reviews when it hasn't been earned.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXXIV – The Obvious Secrets**

_-_

_I'm going all the way,  
Just give me a half a chance,  
From throwing it all away,  
Run to the place that hides the pain you have inside,  
Cover my chain, it hides the strain,  
Only to glide._

_**-Stone Temple Pilots, Glide.**_

_-_

A safe distance away from the now-closed door, Rinoa was finally able to spill what she wanted to say the very instant she'd heard his last mocking words come from his mouth.

"Nice job back there Squall. I don't think we could have pulled this off any better." she divulged. When he turned his head, Rinoa made sure to flash him a smile to make sure that he didn't take her compliment as sarcastic. He looked ahead again and sighed.

"I...have no patience for this kind of crap today. None whatsoever."

"That's okay. I would have done the same thing. She was being really rude to you." she agreed. "It almost makes me miss Instructor Kolp. _Almost._"

"...Whatever. Let's just go the office."

Rinoa almost did a double-take. "You're not seriously going to do what she said, are you?"

He shook his head. "I doubt the bat knows how to work the intercom but it's still going to show on the attendance sheet. We need to explain our case to Cid." he elaborated. "Otherwise we might get into the trouble you wanted to avoid."

She nodded. "Alright. Let's go..._whoa—_"

It felt as if a metaphorical hammer nailed her on the head as she suddenly began to dizzily stagger in a zigzag pattern before she almost hit the floor butt-first. Squall had caught her by the arm to make sure it was an '_almost_'. A blink of an eye later and Rinoa was beet-red.

'_That hasn't happened in awhile_,' she thought, '..._well, if yesterday doesn't count.'_

As fast as he'd caught her, Squall let her go as gingerly; he furrowed his eyebrows in the process. Rinoa rubbed the crook of her left elbow where he'd awkwardly caught her. They gave each other identical uneasy stares. She couldn't take it after a few seconds' worth; she _knew _what he was thinking. She had to diffuse the situation. **Now.**

"...I'm fine Squall." she lied. "The whole..._thing_ back there made me a bundle of nerves."

"...You were fine not even a minute ago." he skeptically replied. "What you had yesterday might still be causing problems."

...Maybe she _didn't_ know what he was thinking after all—

Rinoa shook her head rather feverishly. "No,_ it._.._wasn't_ anything to do_ with.._._the_ flu. _I...was _just run down _with...all_ the stuff that _was...Hyne..._"

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Waking up from felt like a hazy dream, Rinoa groggily opened her eyes to have someone or something flash a retina-burning light in them.

"...Looks like your eyes are focusing. You should be fine." It was Kadowaki. _Huh?_ "Say your name for me."

Rinoa blinked her eyes a couple of times after the light went away. "_...You mean me?_"

"No, I was talking to Squall." she dryly answered. "—I'm only kidding. Of course I meant you."

The teenager shifted her eyes warily. "_Uh...Rinoa?_"

The doctor smirked and pocketed the small flashlight. "You should say that with a more confident tone of voice the next time. Or else I might not believe you then."

Rinoa weakly smiled, "..._I'll try to remember that._"

"Actually, I'd prefer it if you didn't. I'd rather see you healthy." the older woman quipped. The bed-dwelling adolescent's smile grew a little wider.

"_Okay. _I'll try to remember _that _instead, Doctor Kadowaki."

Within a single second, the good doctor's expression turned from light-hearted to serious.

"I'm not going to lie to you Rinoa. I have my reservations about today's incident." she stated, going straight for the jugular. "And I doubt that they're as simple as the possible explanation that Squall has given me."

His name immediately served as a trigger. "...Squall? Where is he?"

"Sitting outside of the infirmary, waiting for you." the doctor answered. "I told him that he could go back to class, but he refused. And like I told you yesterday, if that boy had it in his mind to do something, nothing will get him to change his mind."

"So you...aren't going to call Cid for skipping?"

She shook her head. "He explained the situation with your second period class, and I can't say that I don't agree with your actions." the older woman admitted. "But you didn't hear that from me, alright?"

Rinoa nodded before resuming the line of questions. "So...he's waiting for me?"

"More or less." she explained. "I was under the impression that he would have preferred to stay in here, but I felt the need for privacy, given the circumstances — which conveniently brings me to my next point."

All the teenager could do was gulp and wait for the impending verbal bomb in three...two..._one_...

"I know of your past medical history Rinoa and," The doctor paused, taking a moment to push her glasses back to their proper spot with her index finger. "...it is my duty as a doctor to report back to your parents or the said facility you attended if I feel that there's been a relapse. Yesterday's circumstances were suspicious, but after seeing Squall carry you in here so effortlessly, full backpack and all, I have my doubts. Is there anything you would like to tell me?"

"_I..._" Her eyes started to glaze over. "...I don't want to want to go back. Please...give me a chance, please don't report me."

"Do you have an idea of what the first thing that boy said," The doctor pointed in the direction of the hallway, where Squall was supposedly waiting. "-when I asked him what happened?"

Rinoa quietly bit her lip and shook her head.

"He said, and I quote, '_when she started to wobble, I stopped her from falling by grabbing the crook of her arm but I almost dropped her. I've never felt such a bony arm in my life,_' then he had paused for a moment and said, 's_he might be sick._' And even though the guess he made afterwards couldn't have been the cause, I still agree with the fact that you _are _sick. "

Rinoa bit the inside of her lip harder. The doctor sat down at the side of the bed, placing the most weight on her right arm. She continued then.

"Regardless of what you told me yesterday, he seems to have taken quite a shine to you. Don't let the idea of perfection get in the way if there is something between the two of you. Perfection is for paintings, not people. I'll let you off the hook this time, but consider it your final warning. You are to report to me every Wednesday for a check-up. If you faint again, skip the appointments without a valid reason or if I notice that you aren't making an effort to gain some weight over time, that will be your third strike and it'll be game over."

"_Sure...okay..._"

"That leaves us two things to attend to then."

"...Which is, um, what Doctor Kadowaki?" she meekly asked.

"A mandatory weigh-in and brunch." the doctor answered. "I take it that you haven't had anything to eat after noticing the extra saliva in the corners of your mouth when I was checking your throat for any blockages. Now can I trust your _companion_ to make sure you eat what I give you, or should I pull up a table for you here?"

"Oh." Cue the reddening cheeks. "Um...I'll be fine with Squall to eat somewhere else."

And with that, Rinoa slowly dipped her feet downward, off to the side of the bed and to the ground. She stood there and the doctor directed her to the infirmary's scale, towards the back of the room. Not even a minute later, the teenager had her eyes closed as the doctor was adjusting the scale measure down the numbered slider. Once the precise number was found, the quick scratches of the doctor's pen onto a medical record sheet burned into her mind. Someone else knew of her two digits, someone else would be judging. The food she'd be given later would have been easier to swallow.

In that very instant, Rinoa decided to change her mind and eat in the infirmary instead. He doesn't need to know of this, he doesn't need to be burdened with this. All he'd need to know would be the lie she'd feed him later, that it was just some lingering symptoms from yesterday. Life will be a little simpler that way, she reasoned.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

When she had left the infirmary, Squall had effectively put the last nail in the coffin for whatever suspicions the doctor had about a budding '_relationship_' developing between the pair. He was as close and attentive as he could be without saying a word. Although Rinoa had always known that he has never been much of a linguist, she had no idea that he was so good with conveying things so effortlessly with body language. She'd have to ask him later. Right now, they were walking to Cid's office to do what they'd been meaning to do earlier. Judging by the time, the period was just about halfway done.

Waiting for the elevator to come down to the main floor, Squall started shuffling his feet before looking her way when things were taking longer than expected.

"What...did she say to you?"

"Oh, Kadowaki?" she said with a bit of surprise in her tone. She hadn't expected him to bring it up; she'd assumed that the level of concern the doctor had talked about was just for show. "She just said that I should make sure to eat regularly to make sure my energy levels don't fall down like they did this morning. The flu kinda trashed my strength."

He turned to look at the elevator door. "Hm."

"Well, it kind of gets better."

The teenager turned back, sporting a deeply cynical look. "...I doubt that very much." he sardonically replied.

"No, no. It is good." Now, Rinoa couldn't resist smiling. "Doctor Kadowaki is convinced you've got the hots for me. So that's good news for this whole faking business."

He raised an eyebrow. "...Nice phrasing."

"I try, you know." She had to laugh a little. "Well, she phrased it like, '_he's taken a shine to you_,' but I think this packs more of a punch, don't you think?"

Squall shrugged. "I guess so. She made you sound like a shoe I'm polishing."

"_Hey..._I thought you didn't do jokes?"

He shrugged again. "Someone could be around. I have to stay out of character." he deadpanned.

Rinoa tossed him a casual look of mildly disbelieving look. She wasn't quite sold. "No, people don't usually pop up when nothing earth-shattering is happening. Normally that only happens when you're either, A – in the middle, or about to get, uh, involved with someone, B – about to reveal some kind of big secret, or C – when whatever you're saying will sound so wrong because they walk in at the worst time ever. There's practically no in between."

"._..Involved?_"

She rolled her eyes. "Well, what do you want me to say?"

"What it is." he said dryly. "I'm eighteen; it won't scar me for life."

"Fine, if you want me to be more specific..." Rinoa took a deep breath and_._.._instead _of saying it aloud, like it looked like she was going to do, she made a few crude gestures with her fingers to interpret what she meant by '_involved_'. She cracked into another smile afterwards. "Sorry, I couldn't say it out loud. I kept on thinking about _'option C'_. The last thing we need is—"

Oops.

In a knee-jerk reaction, Rinoa brushed her cheeks with the tips of her fingertips. The elevator finally came and her face felt like it was ablaze. After they'd walked into it, Squall pressed the button for the floor Cid's office was on. The door closed before anyone else could get in. It was only them.

"I still have to get used to this...I've got to stop caring if people think that. It's a part of what couples do after a_ll_—"

"_-Rinoa,_" he said pointedly, cutting her off altogether. "I was trying to get you to say it because someone _was_ passing by right before you stopped. Your theory's...accurate."

Rinoa's cheeks felt even hotter. "...Remind me never to make any more theories." she mumbled before going on a tangent. "Hyne, you're being very persistent when it comes to trying to get people to '_find_' out."

Squall shrugged. "...It was an opportunity to take, nothing more."

"True." Rinoa agreed. "So, what about Cid? Are you going to try to take an opportunity there so he'll know and spread the word?"

He shook his head. "The headmaster might blame our carelessness on it instead of focusing on the substitute's attitude. We can't chance it."

Nodding, Rinoa added one last comment before the elevator doors opened, "But what he assumes something because we've both been in trouble together first?"

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Apparently, Instructor Kolp's substitute did know how to use the intercom. Not to mention, she was also, allegedly, good friends with Cid from way back. Put the two and two together and it was the _student's_ attitude to blame here. Rinoa quickly learned that there was a zero tolerance policy when it came to these things. She also learned that in spite of being wronged, students were still punished for the wrongs they did as a result of other's actions. She was still written up for wandering around the halls and not taking the '_appropriate method of action_' by reporting to the gym immediately and informing the teacher about her bag. He didn't even mention anything about Nat.

Life sure did suck at times but it went on as she and Squall were waiting for Gym class, their official punishment not being until a little later. It consisted of a date in the headmaster's office during their cancelled fourth period History class. The bag incident saddled her with a shared after-school detention with Squall on Thursday. Evidently, the Garden didn't believe in missing school as a part of the punishment.

_...Damn._

Blowing the hair out of her face as she lazily sat down near the Training Center's doors, Rinoa waited to be told where to go for today's Gym class like everyone else, clad in full Phys. Ed. regalia. She heard the familiar '_thump_' noise of someone sitting down. This time, it was beside her and not somewhere else.

Thankfully, it wasn't Squall, as her head was still in a tizzy to properly fake stuff. The person in question was a certain dark-haired friend of hers.

The aforementioned friend's aquamarine eyes held a fair amount of curiosity when Rinoa exchanged glances with her. Conveniently enough, the others seemed to either be preoccupied with their only discussions or at least appeared to be out of earshot. And _boy _was this was going to fun, her stomach was already in pre-emptive knots.

"You know, I honestly can't remember the last time I got to say hi to you." Adrienne joked. "I swear that you're becoming a magnet for bad luck."

"I know what you mean." Rinoa softly chuckled. "But I think you managed to squeak a '_hi_' in yesterday if I'm not mistaken."

"True. I did manage to scare you with a '_Hey,_' didn't I?" she light-heartedly added before swiftly changing topics, "So, are you in a fair amount of trouble for '_antagonizing_' that horrible sub we had for Lit?"

Rinoa blinked...she _wasn't _giving her the third degree about Squall?

'_Maybe that'll come later._' the teenager mused. '_...Hyne, what's with all of ticking time bombs today?—Oh crap, Squall's coming this way...no, no, no... Stay calm, Rinoa. Maybe he won't come and sit beside you..._'

She immediately directed all of her to her friend. "Yeah, we couldn't plead our case to Cid because she was an old friend of his. And you know how it's _always_ the teenager's fault when friends are involved?"

Adrienne nodded. "Don't get me started on that. It's happened so many times to Ryan that I could write a whole book on it. Then again, he's such a klutz so it's pretty much justified."

Rinoa laughed a little, ignoring the fact that Squall was coming closer and closer. "So he just so happens to be a klutz around Headmaster Cid's friends?"

"More or less—" _Thump._ All of a sudden, Adrienne had a peculiar look on her face, before looking past her. "Well, this sure is a surprise."

Oh damn. It happened already. What was it about his extremely fast way of walking that always her off guard? Rinoa turned to look the other way.

_Oops._ Wasn't him again, she'd just saw him sit somewhere else on the other wall out of the corner of her eye. It was Ivy who was on the other side of her. Interestingly enough, she was wearing the gym outfit and not her regular clothes. The white shirt was evidently an older one from before she was pregnant; the swell of her stomach was clearly testing the limits of the hem of the shirt.

"I went ahead and asked what we were doing today and Instructor Reiyn said that I'd be able to participate since it's a low impact activity we're doing today."

"Oh, so what are we doing Ivy?" Adrienne asked.

She lightly smirked. "_Apparently_, he's under the impression that I can play badminton at four-and-a-half months along. I don't think I'll be able to dive for any birdie that goes below this-" Ivy poked her stomach for emphasis. Now she was looking straight at Rinoa. "I swear it started growing tenfold like since I last talked to you Rinoa. I had to hop around like mad to even get into this shirt. And at this rate, I'll need scissors to cut my way out of it after class is done."

Rinoa nearly did a double take. "Hyne, was Alexis's birthday the last time I talked to you?" The brunette nodded. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I've been running around like a Chocobo with its head cut off lately. Being sick didn't help either."

"It's okay, Rinoa. You don't have to apologize to me. This is new for you; I can understand why you've been busier with other things."

"...Other things?" Rinoa confusedly repeated, "I'm not sure if I'm following you."

Adrienne tapped her on the shoulder and Rinoa looked the other way at her. She started to talk at whisper-level. "..._She's talking about what we found out about this morning Rinoa._"

What came out of Rinoa's mouth next could have been anyone's guess but her own. All she had in her head was a series of half-thoughts and fragmented words floating around there. Was it bad that her first instinct was to deny all of this?

'_Stay calm Rinoa. Don't blow it. They're not mad at you._'

'_...I think.' _

Using her peripheral vision, Rinoa saw Squall get up from where he was sitting. Watching where he went wasn't an option though. Plenty of people were blocking her line of sight at the moment. And so, she stuck to the conversation at hand. "Actually...I think it was just being sick for the past couple of days that's been taking up my time, I mean, between that and the Lit work, I had virtually no time for anyone."

"Ok, we'll forgive you this _one _time Rinoa." Adrienne amicably joshed. "It'll be your '_I'm in the love-struck phase'_ freebie, kay? Just remember that we like knowing what you look like once in awhile."

Rinoa was utterly flabbergasted at this point. "Seriously...you guys aren't going to make fun of me or anything?"

When she looked at both friends, she caught the mildly disgusted and disbelieving look on Ivy's face.

"Rinoa, I don't know what's gotten into your head but we're not like the _others, _we're not going to make fun of you. And I honestly don't see a reason to. Dating someone's whose reserved isn't a reason to make fun of them."

Rinoa looked at Adrienne's way. She gave her a warm, yet mildly hurt look. It was as if she was withholding a small grimace.

"I don't really have an opinion on him yet, but...I really wished you would have told us instead of making us find out at the same time as the others." she admitted. "But, I have to admit that after the whole _Tyler _thing...I can, well, I can see why you'd want to wait it out."

Against her will, Rinoa flinched a little at the mention of his name. Was she talking about in general, or did she actually know about the specific event which led to the break-up? With Alexis in the picture, it was possible that she knew more if she'd told her sister about the one time he mixed the two of them up. Either way, Rinoa was going to pretend that she was talking in general terms.

"Thanks...for understanding. But you're right. It was stupid of me to not keep you in the loop when I should have. I guess I really was the headless Chocobo I was describing myself as."

Adrienne finally had a smirk on her face. "More like a beheaded _and _wobbly Chocobo, I think. That spill you had yesterday looked like it hurt."

Rinoa flinched again. God, how many times was her stupidity over the last few days going to show? It was starting to look like she was _really _trying to make it seem like she'd cut everyone out of her life as of late. She may have not been given the third degree, but this was definitely a slow burn nonetheless.

"I was fine. I just woke up a couple of minutes later though, I was wondering why I was moving when my legs were just drifting along. Well, that and why I didn't see any nasty bruises when I looked in the mirror a couple of hours later."

Adrienne's smirk grew wider. "You know, it's a shame that Instructor Kolp made Squall _and _Seifer carry you if you said that you woke up while they were still on the way there."

In response, all Rinoa could seem do was blankly stare at her.

'_Wow...that was a bad. Hyne, I can't believe I just did that. That's going to either make me look naive, like I don't know what she's implying or surprised that she bought it up...'_

"Sorry," Rinoa quickly interjected, "I know what you meant, it's just that I'm still kind of shell-shocked that you guys are talking to me as if he's any other guy. I guess I'm not used to being treated like I haven't lost my head because of the last few days."

"You should trust your judgement more Rinoa." Ivy chided. "We know that you're not the kind of person who clings onto anyone who asks you out. There's obviously a reason why you're with him and we respect that and are willing to give him a chance. The people who treat you as if you've lost your head...they're the ones who don't look past what they see on the outside."

After taking a small breath, she continued. "Trust me; I'm going through the same thing. When some people take one look at my stomach, they assume that I'm irresponsible, stupid and reckless when that's the furthest thing from the truth. Those people don't know a thing about who I am and I know better than to let their opinions get to me."

"She's right Rinoa," Adrienne's own words made Rinoa's face gravitate to the other side. "-you don't have to settle with the idea that being with him is wrong, weird or whatever they're making you think. If you believe that this is worth it, don't give them a second thought. They're wrong and they don't know the whole picture. So as long as he isn't making you miserable, count on us to stick up for you."

"Wow, I...really don't know what to say. Thank you."

Rinoa was on the verge of trembling. With Ivy and Adrienne's words in mind, her brain went rather numb. She'd undergone a revelation.

'_...I don't think I've ever had friends like this before.'_

After a moment or two of silence, Rinoa heard some footsteps behind her and the three girls turned towards the source of the noise. And once and for all, it was actually Squall this time.

"Hey...you." Rinoa softly greeted. She took a quick look of their surroundings. The starkness of the hallway forced her to ask a question. "By any chance...was the class cancelled? I don't see anybody around here."

He shook his head. "...They're setting up nets in the ballroom."

Adrienne got up with her duffel bag. "Well, I guess we should get going before someone notices. Thanks for the heads up."

When Ivy slowly got up afterwards and said a brief thanks as well, the four of them headed towards the aforementioned room with Squall in front of them with Rinoa half-a-step behind and Ivy and Adrienne bringing up the rear. After few minutes down the line, this was reason enough for the latter to lightly jog up to Rinoa and whisper something in her ear.

"_Hyne...does he always walk this fast?_" Rinoa smiled and nodded to her. For some reason, a smile crept on her friend's face. "_So I guess it wouldn't have really mattered if he was the only one to carry you. The speed-walking would have killed any kind of romantic moment you two could have had._"

Rinoa light-heartedly punched her in the arm. ".._.You're bad Adrienne._"

'..._But I wouldn't have you any other way._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Aah, I know, I'm a little late, but I have a good excuse this time! Last week I was working 10-6 from Tuesday to Friday, 10-5 on Saturday and I was away the whole day on Sunday so I either didn't have much time to write or was too tired to do it.

Either way, enjoy! :D

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbits – **I know I forgot last chapter's tidbits but I was in a hurry. I'll get around to it another time, I'm too brain dead to do it now since there were a couple of things, I think. Hm. The only thing I can think of for this chapter is that a piece of in-game dialogue is being mocked here. If there's more, I'll get around to that too.


	36. Chapter XXXV – Gutterflowers

**Author's Notes – **Sorry. Got distracted by a one-shot. .._.Badly._ So blame my tardiness on that. Well, that and an AMV contest I was running on YouTube, but that's besides the point. _Anyways_, there are a few things I have to get out of the way. -Anyone up for some confession time and tidbits? I'll get the tidbits from the earlier chapters out of the way first.

**Random Tidbits For Chapter 33 – **The description Rinoa gives of Squall about his older Grade 11 photos is a reference to when she does the same thing in Breaking Free and Rinoa's flying toaster screensaver is a reference to the one found on the old Windows operating systems.

**Random Tidbits For Chapter 34 – **I remembered the one thing I forgot the morning after I posted this. And that's that the line, "I'm eighteen; it won't scar me for life," is obviously a joke referencing his in-game scar.

-Now for the confession. Because this fic is so frickin' long, I goofed up on the school schedule in the latter chapters and made it seem like they had Lit first and Gym at second when it's supposed to be,

Art (Rinoa) /Calculus (Squall)

Lit

(Lunch)

Gym

History

So because of that, I fixed the last two chapters, so for those of you who don't feel like skimming over those parts again, what happens is that in the car scene, Squall ends up pulling over so he can safely tell her that he had received an e-mail from the school saying that there's a last minute conference that a lot of the teachers had to go to, so they couldn't find substitutes for all of teachers. Since he didn't know which class she had at first, he asks her about it and when she tells him it's Art, he checks a print-out of the e-mail from his pocket which presumably says which classes are cancelled for the day.

When he sees that it is cancelled, he suggests that they wait it out in that place and they do so during that gap of time in Chapter 33. And in Chapter 34, the punishment's been moved to fourth period since it's one of the cancelled classes.

Phew. That was a long summary. Anyways, now that that's done and over with, I'd better get cracking. These things don't write themselves.

_Though I sometimes wish they did... Ha, ha._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXXV – Gutterflowers**

_-_

_On this day,  
It's so real to me,  
Everything has come to life,  
Another chance to chase a dream,  
Another chance to feel,  
Chance to feel alive._

_**-Alter Bridge, Metalingus.  
**_

_-_

Luckily for Rinoa and the others, no one had really taken notice of their lateness due to the general hubbub of finding the right posts, stringing the net ends through the loops properly and the occasional birdie whizzing overhead from those who managed to bypass the whole setting up process.

"I'll find us all some racquets and birdies from the cart." Ivy said; motioning to the far-away cart designed to hold the aforementioned equipment. "I'll be back in a bit."

"Thanks Ivy." Rinoa and Adrienne chorused. Squall just gave her a curt nod.

A second later, the other girl turned and faced the pair. "So...either of you good at badminton?"

Before he had the chance to answer, Rinoa sneaked a glance at Squall and found his expression rather funny. It was clear to see that he wasn't used to getting the time of day from anyone from the mildly bewildered look on his face. If Adrienne wasn't here, she would have laughed a little, but because she was, she decided to answer her question first.

"It's been awhile since I've played but, I was fairly good at it if it wasn't by myself on the court. Well, maybe I wasn't _that_ bad by myself, but I was more of a doubles or mixed doubles player. I'd do these really short hits that would have the birdie go just above the net and it would drive everyone crazy. I wasn't good at smashing but I had a pretty decent backhand."

"That's cool. We'd probably make a good team. I've got a good smash and I'm fairly good at reaching for all of the really short shots." Adrienne commented. "So what about you Squall? Are you as good as Rinoa?"

He shrugged. "...I can hold my own."

"Well, we'll have to test that theory out then." she casually mentioned before glancing the other way for another second. "I'll go and nab us a court to play on. Just meet me wherever I am once Ivy comes back with the racquets, okay?"

Rinoa nodded. "Sure. Sounds good."

And with that, Adrienne went into a light jog over to a nearby unoccupied court that someone had just finished setting up. A few seconds later, Squall shot Rinoa a wary look.

"That...was odd."

"Hey...they're just trying to be nice to you. There's nothing wrong in that." Rinoa light-heartedly argued. "Be thankful that they're not treating us like aliens."

He crossed his arms and briefly glanced the other way. "...She's already back with the racquets."

"That's nice, but I know that you're just trying to change the subject."

Faster than Squall could open his mouth, which was obviously not very fast at all, Ivy was back with the racquets and handed them each one. She looked around the area for Adrienne when she still had the second one in hand.

"Did Adrienne go to the washroom?"

Rinoa shook her head. "No, she's just gone to save us a court over there."

She looked the other way only to see Adrienne waving them over semi-frantically. They immediately started walking to her.

Right before they were there, Ivy slowed her pace and glanced over at Rinoa. "You know, while I was getting the racquets, Paul saw me while he was setting up one of the nets. He looked surprised to see me in my old gym clothes so I explained the situation and he almost started to laugh. He couldn't imagine me playing with Ethan in the way. I almost feel like proving him wrong."

Rinoa laughed a little. "Well, if you want, we can be partners when we play. Who knows, maybe Ethan will cheer you on against Squall and Adrienne."

"I think I'd like that." Ivy briefly mentioned before Squall's confused look, though very minute, caught her eye. She shifted her attention onto him. "Hyne...we're probably confusing you here. My boyfriend and I found out that we're expecting a boy and we'd picked the name Ethan already."

"Hm." Squall nodded in comprehension before changing the focus onto Rinoa. "So...what was that about teams?"

"Oh._..that._" Rinoa suavely repeated, trying to sound coy about it. "I want to see if I can kick your butt at badminton."

He raised a brow. "...This'll only be practice if anything. I don't think the teacher will let us monopolize the court."

"Whatever," Rinoa casually shrugged, "All I know is that whatever time we get, I'm gonna kick your butt."

Right after, she punctuated her sentence with a small wink to show she wasn't being serious. In all honesty, Rinoa had no idea of her current capabilities or even Squall's. She had a small hunch that he was downplaying his level of skill or something.

"You know," Ivy started, "I used to have an old badminton partner who sounded just like you just did, down to the wink."

The teenager blinked, she hadn't expected that. "Oh, you used to play competitively?"

"Actually, Ivy is one of the best players from Balamb Garden," Adrienne cut in. Rinoa blinked. She hadn't realized that she was within earshot or the court already. It was as if she'd been in a time warp of sorts.

"That's true but," Ivy went to other side of the net to hand Adrienne her racquet, "I think you're being kind with the verb tense there. I _was_ one of the better players, not _is_."

"Unless if you broke a leg or arm, I don't think you're down for the count just yet. I don't think your partner would appreciate you giving up so easily."

Rinoa furrowed her brows. "Um...Were you talking about me or about her old partner?"

"Her old partner," she answered, "—I wasn't aware that we'd made teams already."

"Oops. My mistake." she apologized. "I thought that me and Ivy could be a team with you and Squall as the other."

"Sure, that's fine." Adrienne casually agreed before turning her attention back to Ivy. "I can't remember; was it only that one year where you qualified for the nationals with her?"

"Yes, she was only my partner last year. The year before that, I only made it to the provincials with another girl Instructor Reiyn paired me up with and she was playing mixed doubles with someone from her grade, though I believe it was a last-minute thing. Her original partner couldn't play for the rest of the season after breaking his arm."

"Oh, okay. I didn't know." Adrienne commented. "Actually, speaking of which, do you know where she's been lately? I thought that she going to stay an extra year because of that gym credit mix-up and I haven't seen her anywhere."

"Iris?" Ivy asked. Adrienne nodded. Rinoa secretly flinched and looked over at Squall. Fortunately enough, he was hitting around a birdie he must have found somewhere and looked as if he wasn't listening. "The last thing I heard was that her father was transferred so she had to move. I've tried sending a couple of e-mails but they kept on getting sent back to me so I don't know what's going on. Anyways..." she turned to Rinoa. "..We ready to play?"

Rinoa nodded. "Oh, yeah, sure." she mildly stuttered, snatching Squall's birdie two seconds later in the process. He looked at her rather funnily.

"...Decided to start?" he quietly asked, the question lightly marinated in subtle sarcasm.

Rinoa nodded again, though she wasn't the one to open her mouth. Adrienne was.

"Hey, since you guys are already on that side already, why don't we just go with this set-up?" she suggested; the teenager turned towards the other girl, "Do you mind Ivy?"

She shook her head. "...Doesn't matter to me."

Adrienne looked back towards the couple on the other side of the net. "You two don't mind either?" she reiterated with a small smirk, "..If you're not hell-bent on kicking each others butts that is."

The pair looked into each other's eyes for a brief moment. Obviously this question hadn't really mattered but, but on the other hand... Rinoa had just witnessed something a little unsettling. Whether it was her imagination acting up or something else, Squall seemed a little uneasy while he was half-heartedly trying to maintain eye contact for that brief second. It was like squirming without seeing the actual physical movements, more like a mental squirming, if the term made sense somehow.

In spite of this, Rinoa was the first to look away. "Yeah, I think we can call a truce." she joshed, lightly chuckling. "So who gets the first serve?"

"You might as well." Ivy insisted. "You already have the birdie in your hand."

"No, I don't," Rinoa smartly tossed the birdie back to Squall. Despite the surprise toss, he caught it with ease. "-he does."

Both girls on the other side shrugged before getting into position. Squall looped around Rinoa to get to the right side to be in the proper spot. A moment later, he was ready and waiting for a sign from Ivy to go since she'd be the one he would be serving to. With a simple nod from her, he sent it over with a short hit, looking like it would barely cross the first line's threshold. Rinoa waited with bated breath and her racquet upright, waiting for the counter.

Ivy awkwardly tipped it back over, her stomach making it slightly difficult to flick her racquet accordingly. Looking like it was going to her side of the court, Rinoa leaned forward and used a backhand-swing to send it deep into Adrienne's corner. Adrienne quickly backed up and promptly took advantage of the shot's height and sent it zipping back with a speedy smash, barely clearing the net on purpose.

Once again, it was heading towards Rinoa but she was too close to the front to be able to back up in time. Out of nowhere, another racquet intercepted the birdie's impending contact with her body and barely tapped it over the net. Ivy was just within range to hit it but it wasn't enough; it had ticked the rim of her racquet, sending the birdie askew. The first point was theirs.

Rinoa looked at Squall, with a bit of a chuckle. "Nice work there, mister I-can-hold-my-own."

He shrugged and walked to get the birdie near the left-hand side's pole. Moments later, he served it across to Adrienne. She sent it back deep into Rinoa's corner, akin to the kind of shot she did the other time. Scrabbling to back up far enough, Rinoa saw Squall out of the corner of her eye, looking at her. She got there on time and hit the birdie straight past the net and down the other side's middle line. Ivy extended her racquet and gave it a little tap to just clear the net. Just when she was going to resign all hope that they'd be able to send it back, seeing as they were both further back on the court, Squall took two quick strides and nearly stretched his racquet arm to tap it back over the net on Adrienne's side.

Adrienne managed not only send it back but aim it directly in front of Squall's free hand, making the possibility of return next _to.._. _Never mind._ He had just flicked it back to Ivy's side using an awkwardly-positioned backhand.

The birdie made quite a couple trips back and forth, abused by many taps, smashes and regular shots in general before Rinoa had finally ended the rally by catching the birdie. She'd noticed the instructor staring at them out of the corner of her eye.

It was safe to say that practice time was over. However, in spite of their warm-ups being cut short, Rinoa managed to give her brain a full work-out. Coupling the fact that he was hitting nigh-impossible shots with impossible stamina and vigour, assuming that this didn't have to do with his health in general, and that Iris had a _male_ doubles partner two years ago with someone her age, Rinoa assumed that it wouldn't have been too much of a stretch to infer that he was her partner. The timeline fit, and it might have explained why he met someone like her. Not to say that he wasn't capable of meeting someone in his own time, but, it wasn't likely in favour of a situation which could prod something like that.

Either way, regardless of the past, the boy was very_, very_ good at badminton and because of that, Instructor Reiyn had casually set them aside after he'd gotten everyone else into warm-ups, suggesting for her and Squall to try out for the badminton team's mixed doubles category. Rinoa had to laugh a little inside. If her assumptions were correct, it was like history satirizing itself.

Rinoa tried to gage his willingness to pair up after-school like this by his expression. He nonchalantly shrugged.

"Doesn't matter to me, I've done this before." he casually answered to the instructor. Afterwards, he looked over at her. "What about you?"

Rinoa casually shrugged too, ignoring the tidbit of info Squall had just given her moments ago. "Sure, I might as well try out for the only sport I'm good at."

"Alright then, the first practice is after school next Monday." Instructor Reiyn added, before pointing to the furthest court away from them. "You can join the others in warm-ups over there."

With a simple nod from the pair, they were now on their way to the other side of the ballroom. Once they were out of an earshot of the instructor, Rinoa felt the need to talk.

"Wow, what where the odds of that happening?"

"Fairly high."

"So...what makes you think that?"

"He asks me every year." he deadpanned. "I usually say no."

"Ah. So...if _this_ wasn't happening, you wouldn't have said yes?" Rinoa asked, in spite of already knowing the answer.

He shrugged. "A distraction's a distraction. I'd prefer singles, but whatever works."

"So...I'm not half bad?"

"You need to try a new position when you're playing with me so you're not as winded, but you're fine otherwise."

Rinoa's jaw dropped. She nearly dropped her racquet. "...Did I hear what I thought I heard?"

He furrowed his brows. "...I fail to see what I said that could possibly make you blush."

"Quit playing dumb Squall. I know that you know that it's because you said, '_you need to try a new position_' that's making me blush."

He rolled his eyes. "...That wasn't supposed to be an innuendo, I meant that literally. Your positioning sucks."

If Rinoa was red before, she went to the other spectrum of the shade after his statement.

"_Sorry._" she mumbled. "_I thought you were doing that thing again where you...um, you know, do stuff to convince people?_"

He shook his head. "I doubt that I'd have to say that to convince people, but...I think some people might have overheard that."

Rinoa looked around just to see if he was right and when she was met back with a few looks, including Adrienne missing the birdie Ivy hit to her because she was smirking ear-to-ear, barely containing the giggles — Rinoa was the one shaking her head after.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After the class was over and they'd both changed out of their gym clothes, the pair headed towards the Headmaster's office for their detention. Hobbling behind him, Rinoa was rubbing her extremely sore backside.

"_Ow. Ow. Ow.._" she mouthed with every hobble. Squall turned around. Rinoa tossed him a mild glare. "_Need a new position so you're not as winded, huh?_"

"You were doing better after. Don't complain to me if your ass hurts." he bluntly countered.

Rinoa rubbed the said body part for emphasis. "Never mind my butt hurting, I think I'm going to have to relearn how to walk thanks to you."

"Whatever, it'll get better with more practice. I assume it's been awhile?"

"Yeah, it's been awhile but I'm sure I'll be able to keep with your _inhuman _stamina after a few more times—" All of a sudden, Rinoa burst into a fit of giggles. "_Pfft.._Hyne...we got to stop this now, this sounds really, _really_ wrong. I can't believe we managed to keep the double-entendres up for that long."

He shrugged. "This was _your_ warped experiment."

Rinoa stifled another giggle. "I know, but it's funny because if I didn't know any better, I'd say we were having a biting discussion about how I'm so out of shape. I think it's amazing how a conversation like that could be taken in two very different ways, depending on how far down your brain's in the gutter."

"Rinoa, I doubt that anyone wouldn't take that the wrong way. Everyone we passed gave us strange looks."

"Okay...so maybe I was being a little too optimistic there." she conceded. "I guess that makes us all a whole bunch of gutterflowers in a Garden then?"

Squall arched an eyebrow. "...Gutterflowers?"

"Sorry, I thought you would have caught that. I figured that since we're in a '_garden,_' you could think of students as '_flowers'_ growing inside of it and, if they all have their minds in the gutter, well, that could make them..._gutterflowers._"

"...Makes sense."

"That's good to know. Otherwise, I'd be just making up senseless words. Anyways..." she started to trail off, "-thanks for running this experiment with me even though...it was a little _warped_ like you said. I'm sure it'll help me get used to the idea of people thinking that about us in that light so my own thoughts won't get in the way anymore."

The brow Squall had lowered a moment ago rose again. "_That's_...the weirdest thing I've ever been thanked for."

Rinoa smirked a little. "I'll take that as a compliment then." she replied. "So...you ready for our date with Cid?"

"Not really."

This answer took her by surprise. "Oh, why not?"

He tossed her a look. "...Didn't you pay attention in class?"

"I guess not. Why?"

He sighed. "Instructor Reiyn added a fourth wheel."

Rinoa gasped. "._..It's not Nat, is it?_"

Squall shook his head. "No. Even worse."

'_Uh oh. Who could be worse than Nat?_'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

When they'd finally arrived in Cid's office, there was a small table set up with three chairs for their detention. One was already filled.

'_Ah. So that's who Squall meant,_' she mentally deduced, '..._but, why is he worse than Nat? This is a good thing._'

'_Maybe it isn't for him._' her mind chided, recollecting the other day.

"_**Whatever. I don't need to justify my actions to you. ...Why do you care so much about the possibility that I might be screwing around with her anyway?"**_

"_**...She's good friend. And the last thing I need is for you to drag her down with you even if you are just fucking around with her. She doesn't deserve that kind of bullshit. And just for the record, I know something's up because you normally would have wormed your way out of Kolp asking you to help carry her. Care to explain that one?"**_

"Hey Seifer, what are you doing here?" Rinoa greeted, ignoring the recent thoughts in her head. "Mouth off to that sub too?"

"Nah, I hit a guy with a racquet because he wouldn't get out of my way." he casually answered, pulling up a chair for her. Squall had already seated himself across from the two of them. "So, you couldn't get out of that? ...Or was your _friend_ insisting that he be punished?"

"No, the sub was one of Cid's friends." she answered, ignoring Seifer's quip directed at Squall. "So we were basically doomed from the start."

"So that old crone was one of _those?_ God, you picked the wrong time to go off in protest. Not that staying in class was any better. She went mental when Cid said that you weren't in his office when she got someone to work the intercom for her."

"Wow, she's that much of a control freak?"

Seifer nodded. "She almost had half the class go to the office at one point. It was brutal."

"I'll believe that for sure." Rinoa agreed before cracking a smile. "So I guess we got the better trade-off then, huh?"

The blond looked in Squall's direction for a brief moment before commenting. "-Can't say that I agree Rin." He looked over at Squall again, as if he was intentionally trying to get his attention. ...The strange thing was that it worked. Squall was looking straight at him. "I mean, you're no fun, aren't you Leonhart?"

Squall rolled his eyes. "_Sure_...because fun has _everything_ to do with being sent to the headmaster's office."

"It does when you don't go there right away."

Rinoa's jaw nearly dropped.Did she hear what she thought she'd heard?

Squall's stare turned into a piercing glare. "Don't assume about what you don't know." he said sternly. "Better yet, say something that makes you sound like an actual friend."

"That was uncalled for Leonhart. I was only joking around."

Squall crossed his arms. "...Well, I wasn't laughing and I don't think Rinoa was either."

"Okay, so the joke was a little inappropriate and it fell flat, big deal. It's not like you haven't heard shit like that before." Seifer countered. "-be thankful I'm not sprouting the same kind of crap I've been hearing from people who have nothing better to do. To put it lightly, they're under the impression that you're compensating for a lot of fucked-up shit by acting like a mute at school."

Rinoa raised a brow. "Um, okay...am I supposed to be saying thank you here?"

Seifer looked back to her. "I'd like to think so." he light-heartedly answered. "-I mean, he's still in one piece, isn't he?"

She shook her head. "Okay, I get it, I get it... You two don't like each other and this is _really_ bothering you."

"That about sums it up." the blond shrugged before turned to face Squall again. "Now that this is blatantly out in the open, pretend like I gave you a death threat alright? I'm not in the mood to go through the motions."

"Whatever."

After this exchange, Rinoa had to laugh, despite the fact that they weren't finished with each other. The part she heard was so...strangely fluid that it seemed like something from a scripted TV sitcom. Either way, she was glad that she wasn't playing referee. Seifer may not have liked her choice in boyfriend; at least he was respectful enough to keep somewhat civil, while somehow making her laugh like he'd always done in the past at same time.

Her laughs suddenly sobered when the din quieted exponentially. She'd caught the attention of both teenagers.

"Sorry." she mumbled. "What you guys were saying sounded really funny in my head. I couldn't help myself."

Seifer turned to face Squall with a smirk. "You hear that? Even she thinks you're a joke."

"...Right. First I'm no fun then I'm a joke? Straining to find your insults?" Squall snorted. "Whatever, it doesn't matter anyway. If I'm a joke, then I'm a joke with girlfriend."

'_Okay, if he does beat him up after that, I think I'll be fine._' she mentally wise-cracked.

When Squall was still in one piece after their detention had finished roughly an hour later, she concluded that she was indeed fine.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments -** _Eeh._..I'm not exactly feeling this one, so it's okay if you guys don't either. I just needed to get some things out of the way before I can finally really motor and do more than a part of a day per chapter.

Following the after-school detention Squall and Rinoa'll share, I'm guessing that I'll be able to jump a week or at least a couple of days to show better progressions with the act instead of snippets here and there. Yeah, I'm getting really tired of that too.

Anyways, have a good day/night/evening. Sorry for the wait (..._again_).

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbits – **There just one tidbit this time around and that's about the whole 'Gutterflower' thing. See, my friend and I both have this awful tendency to take things the wrong way (most of the time on purpose) so we call ourselves Gutterflowers. We got the name from an album from our favourite band.

_(...And ironically enough, I'm listening to my favourite song of it as I'm typing this.) _


	37. Chapter XXXVI – Badly Sutured Wounds

**Author's Notes – **Nothing to report, just trying to keep going forward. Enjoy my...uh...forwardness?

_(Psst...this is a small and speedy chapter to commemorate hitting 300 reviews. Enjoy!)_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXXVI – Badly Sutured Wounds**

-

_But somehow I feel so strong,  
And I've begun,  
To be the one I never thought I'd be,  
And I feel you now,  
I'm not alone,  
I'll always know where you are._

_**-John Rzeznik, Always Know Where You Are.**_

_-_

The bell signalling the end of the school day rang through Rinoa's ears as the students around her began to cram out of the classroom in the most unruly fashion ever. The thought of the weekend must have been fuelling the fervour. Hyne only knew that Rinoa would have been one for that if only for one teensy problem. Her day wasn't done. She had to serve an hour-long after-school detention with Squall.

And judging by yesterday's detention, it was something to drag her feet about. Mind-numbing silence, a sore back and bottom from the hard plastic chairs and nothing to kill the time...it was the pits. Then again, it wouldn't make sense if it was a free for all. After all, the notion was that if you were going to waste their time, they were going to waste yours. And boy did they ever waste it.

Napping wasn't even an option.

Rinoa slowly packed her stuff into her knapsack, hoping that the dynamics of an after-school detention was different or that whoever was in charge of watching over the detention wasn't as strict as Cid. Not like it was going to happen but hey, it didn't hurt to hope.

"...Done?" a voice from above her asked. She looked up. The question obviously came from Squall, waiting from his seat.

Today had gone better as far as the relationship went, not that it went without any hitches, of course, but a definite improvement nonetheless. Squall was getting better at faking the closeness, nothing mushy or over-zealous, but just enough to make her forget it was only an act at times.

Zoning back into reality, Rinoa nodded. "If it's anything like yesterday's detention, I really don't see the point in being early." she told him, zipping up her backpack at the same time. She grabbed one of straps and slung it over her back while he walked over to her terminal.

"It won't be as bad." he explained. They were now walking out of the now-empty class together. "People who watch over the after-school detention don't care about what you do as long as you're relatively quiet."

"That's good to know. Though, I wouldn't have pegged you as someone who's had a detention before." she commented-slash-lied.

After they were past the room's threshold, he sighed. "Before the time you came to Garden, I wasn't always a picture-perfect student. ...I've had enough after-school detentions to know."

"...I see." she added before getting off the subject indefinitely. "Are we allowed to take naps?"

"No."

"Darn. I could really go for one. I'm zapped."

"...The flu still affecting you?" he asked. Rinoa refrained from blinking. Instead, she shook her head.

"No...I'm better. I just didn't sleep well." she truthfully answered. When they'd reached the elevator, she pushed the button to go up. She looked his way. "To be honest, I didn't know what to expect for today, so...thinking about what would happen kept me up."

The door opened and they walked in, filling the empty space. Squall pushed the button for the next floor up — where Cid's office was. When the door closed, he spoke up.

"...The worst of this is probably over, or at least it's close to being over." he reasoned to no one in particular. "All we need to do is maintain this now."

Rinoa looked at him. "You believe that?"

He looked back and nodded. "From what I can gather, people are assuming what we wanted them to. I haven't heard anything about that old rumour recently. That could mean that they're attributing it to a private relationship we might have had before instead of a one night stand."

"I hope you're right." she said optimistically. "Still, I don't think we're out of the woods until people stop thinking it's weird that I'm dating you, that you're dating someone, or however you want to phrase that."

"...I don't think we'd ever be _'out of the woods'_ if you're judging by that." he pointedly said. "Stigmas like that don't go away quickly. All you can do is ignore them and secretly hope that you'll prove them wrong. You can't force change but people will notice how you carry yourself."

"Alright, you win mister _'I-analyze-everything-and-make-stuff-sound-smart'_." Rinoa joshed. The door opened and they walked onwards to Cid's office. Squall didn't, or maybe even refused to, make a comment about her small joke. When he opened the heavy wooden doors, Rinoa nearly let out a gasp from behind him.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"—_What are __**you**__ doing here?_" both girls shouted at each other in unison.

Rinoa felt bad for Squall, who was clearly in the crossfire of their voices. The person who was supposed to be in charge of watching them wasn't there. It was only them and Nat sitting in the furthest chair out of three. _God,_ Rinoa thought in vain, _can my day get any worse?_

"_Ugh. This is just wonderful._" Nat groaned. "First the stupid detention monitor in the library tells me that I have to go here because there aren't enough students to need two places and now _this_."

Rinoa furrowed her brows. "Well, you're not going to be any picnic to be around either. Not after all the crap you keep on putting me and Squall through."

"Well, you burned me and you're still with him, so you brought it on yourself." she sniped. "But just out of curiosity's sake, did you _conveniently_ not catch the clue I gave you last time?"

"She knows." Squall spat. "I told her so you couldn't."

Nat gave Rinoa a perplexed look. "Let me get this straight. You're sticking with him even after finding out that he got my cousin, _my best friend as a matter of fact_, pregnant, letting her turn her into a miserable recluse until the day that baby killed her? Do you have any idea of what he took from me? What he took from the world? Iris was one of the kindest and hard-working person you could have ever met and she had everything going for her, _**everything!**_ And what does he do? He fucking screws it all up in one fell swoop. I won't have any tears for you if lightning strikes twice."

"I won't need any if it does." Rinoa countered. "While I can't claim to know her or what she meant to you, what I can say is that it seems to me that this all happened by chance and you don't want to seem to accept that. You want Squall to be the bad guy to help you cope, to make sense of it all. Well, harbouring all the hate you have inside won't bring her back. It'll only make you miserable."

"Ha. Nice advice coming from someone whose life has only been sunshine and rainbows. I'd bet you'd sing another tune if you only knew what it felt to lose someone or had something bad happen to you."

"I've had both happen. I know what I'm talking about." Rinoa bitterly countered.

"Oh bravo, you're better at hiding stuff than I thought." Nat sarcastically replied. "So tell me, this person we met when you came to Garden, was she your former self or were you already damaged by then?"

"...I'd already changed by the time I came here."

"Okay, so what were you like before?"

"I was very outgoing, popular and bubbly person."

"-Seems like a kind of a stretch but I'll assume that you'll understand what I'm going to say here."

Rinoa raised a brow. "...Understand what?"

"Haven't you ever wondered what it would have been if that thing, whatever it was, didn't happen? Wonder what your life could have been like?"

The teenager quietly nodded.

"I think about it every day. I used to be a decent person to hang around with, I used to have fun, I used to care about what I looked like and now, the thoughts ruined all of that. Hell, I might even get expelled from here because I stole your bag to get the chance to talk to you. But what do I care? It's something to cling onto besides the memory of the only person who ever fully understood me. It's all I have."

Nat turned towards Squall and Rinoa literally held her breath, standing there, utterly flabbergasted. "Chance or not, you stole everything from me and I'll be damned if I ever forgive you. Even when she found out, she was always thinking about you first until the very end. When she confided in me when she felt like she had no one else to turn to, I asked her why hadn't she talked to the father of her baby and she said, '_No, I don't want to make him grow up and faster. The last thing I want is to have my mom's situation to happen again._' If she hadn't gone and made a martyr out of herself for your sake, she would have been alive."

After all of the minutes of holding his silence, Squall finally broke it. He wore a solemn, dead expression on his face. "I tried talking to her every opportunity I had when I started to notice in April. But she didn't want to listen to anything I said." Then, out of nowhere, Squall exploded in his tone when even she was half-ignoring his words. "-Goddamn it, _I tried!_ I tried everything and told her that if she didn't want to give her up for adoption, I was willing to raise her together. -Don't you _dare_ accuse me of abandoning her."

"_-Her?_" Nat quizzically repeated, "You knew it was a girl?"

With the evident pain discolouring his blue eyes and constricting his throat, Squall nodded. "I was informed about what happened after they delivered her prematurely." he tersely explained, his words intermittently catching in his throat.

Nat's face suddenly looked as if she'd been kicked in the stomach. Repeatedly. "Even after all the shit you put her through...you were the only one she wanted the hospital to call? I can't believe this..."

"-The past is past. You can't change it, no one can." he heatedly interjected. "As hard as it is, I'm trying to move on. It's your own choice whether or not you want to do the same, just leave Rinoa alone. I told her about this and she chose not to leave. Don't try to sway her mind."

The blonde got up in a huff. "Fine, I won't try and _'sway her mind'_ anymore, just don't expect any niceties from me. You screw it up, I won't hesitate to take enjoyment your failure, you do anything the least bit suspicious, and I won't hesitate to make up a rumour. You've made my life a living hell so I'm gonna to do the same to you."

Rinoa furrowed her brows. "You know, that's a real immature way of handling things."

"Like I care." the blonde spat. "I've taken the high road before and it didn't do anything for me so why bother."

Something in the raven-haired teenager snapped. She didn't know what it was, but all Rinoa wanted to do was give her a taste of her own medicine. Sure, Nat had every reason to be mad at Squall, but the way she was handling it didn't earn any sympathy points from her. She was just a girl who refused to acknowledge the most basic of truths to keep the hate and delusions going.

Even Rinoa would have sought help a long ago instead of festering in this kind of mental squalor.

"So would it be fair if I did this then?" she boldly countered.

Before Squall even knew what hit him, Rinoa circled around him and looped an arm to anchor his neck downwards so she could give him a passionate-seeming kiss on the lips. She obviously felt an initial reluctance on his part due to the fact that she'd caught him off guard, but a split-second later, he had next to no qualms in facilitating this display of affection to spite Nat. He felt warm to the touch but it didn't deter Rinoa from milking this for all it was worth. When he ended it moments later, Rinoa could feel his and her heart wildly racing.

It probably had to do with the fact that they'd pissed off both Nat and the detention supervisor who'd happened to walk in during their lip-lock.

'_Oh well, not everything needs to go to plan._' she mused.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Wow, I updated within a day. It's definitely a new record for me. Sweet deal.

_-Emerald-Latias_


	38. Chapter XXXVII – Taking You Home

**Author's Notes – **Well, this may not be as insanely fast as last one's update but at least things are moving. God, I'm so happy that I'm not stuck writing for part of a day at a time anymore (not like I'll be skipping days on purpose but at least I have some freedom with that now). I have no idea of when this'll be finished though since I'm incredibly talented at writing so much and saying so little. My guess would be that this would end at around Chapter 50, but who knows? I suck at guessing anyway.

Either way, stick around for the crazy ride. I'm sure it'll be fun. ;)

Anywho, this is another tiny chappy for your enjoyment.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXXVII – Taking You Home**

_-_

_Trust I seek and I find in you,  
Every day for us something new,  
Open mind for a different view,  
And nothing else matters._

_**-Metallica, Nothing Else Matters.  
**_

_-_

"I'm sorry about earlier Squall." she apologized. Their detention had just finished and they'd only had the chance to talk just now — the supervisor had kept them separated all throughout the hour. _Apparently_, she didn't feel like watching a '_teenage grope-fest_'. Not like Rinoa could blame her after catching them in that position, but it was rather funny to hear that. "I hope you're not mad with what I did."

He pressed the elevator button and shook his head as they entered alone; Nat had purposely taken a trip down by herself, even going as far as speed-walking and pressing the button to close the door from the inside when they were right on the other side.

"No, it's fine. I'm sort of…" When he trailed off, Rinoa decided to fill in that specific blank right away.

"…Sort of glad?" She smiled when he reluctantly nodded. "That's good. I wish I would have stopped it earlier though. Coming across as some kind of hormonal teenager wasn't the impression I wanted to give that detention monitor."

"…I'll have to agree with you there," He shifted his eyes. "-but…"

Rinoa raised a brow. "…But what?"

"…To be honest with you, I wouldn't have stopped then." The teenager had to discreetly clench her jaw to stop it from dropping through the elevator and down to the main floor. Then he elaborated some more. "…I'd rather not admit this, but, I wanted to make her as annoyed as possible so I could get it out of my system. It doesn't make up for what she did but…"

Once again, she interjected on his behalf. "…You didn't want poisonous hate affecting you like it's affecting her, right?"

He nodded.

Rinoa didn't have to clench her jaw tightly anymore. "That's good that you got that out. I wouldn't want you to turn into a ball of bitterness like Nat."

He looked elsewhere for a moment. "_Thank you…for taking that opportunity. I…don't think I would have._"

"It's no problem Squall. It's the least I could do since you're driving me home." she replied. "But…if we're in another situation like that ever again, don't be afraid to act on it. I won't mind. But Hyne, I can't even imagine what you must of thinking when I pulled that stunt."

"…I think _'shocked'_ would suffice here. You could have been a bit gentler with my neck though." he commented, rubbing the back of his neck for emphasis.

"Sorry, I had to get your face down to mine somehow. I didn't want to go on the tips of my toes because I wasn't trying to go for something sweet or cute. I wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine, not just a drop of it, you know?"

He nodded just as the door opened. When walked out afterwards, Rinoa had a follow-up sentence on the subject in mind but she was hesitant on saying it. Though innocent, depending on how he'd take it, it could sound like she was implying that she was planning on future reoccurrences of this to happen but on the other hand, the very thought of him taking it the wrong way was irrational to begin with. He wasn't Seifer or Ryan so it wouldn't be likely for him to purposely take it the wrong way and bug her about it or just taking it wrong in general.

Another thought occurred to her. _Maybe, just maybe,_ she started to think, _could it be possible that I don't want to say it for another reason altogether? _The hidden reason she was trying rationalize her reluctance on was just that - hidden. She couldn't pinpoint any kind of reason for the life of her. After a half-minute of racking her brains, she called it quits. To hell with it. She was only being irrational.

"Hey, Squall?_"_

A second later, he turned around. "..Hm?"

"In case if I feel like we have to pull the same kind of stunt again…how about I give you a signal so you'll know what I'm going to do next and to give you a heads up?"

When he looked a little uneasy afterwards, Rinoa inwardly cringed. Maybe her reservations weren't as unfounded as she'd convinced herself.

"I don't think we'll need to under normal circumstances but," he said, "-since we could be dealing with _her _antics…anything could happen. What did you have in mind?"

Rinoa secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe it wasn't so much the thought of being kissed that made him nervous, but rather the thought of Nat pulling something on them. _Wait…that couldn't be it,_ _could it?_

"Nothing fancy, really. Maybe I could tug or squeeze your hand?"

He arched a brow. "…And how is that going to save my neck?" he cynically asked.

"No, no. You got this all wrong." she said, trying not to laugh at his naivety. When she gripped his hand, they stopped walking. "If I quickly tug at your hand like this-" She paused her sentence to follow through with her words and tug his right hand. "-That'll be the signal for you to bend your neck while I'm looping my arms around like so-"

Once again, Rinoa did exactly as she said she was going to do and he quickly followed her lead and synced her arms' movements downward by lowering his neck at the same time. Now they were face to face, mere centimetres away from each other.

"-See?" she concluded, "Doesn't that help your neck and still look exactly like we'd just done an hour ago?"

Just as he was about to say something, a random teenage voice colourfully, not to mention oddly pre-emptively, yelled, **"**_**GET A ROOM!**_**"**

In a knee-jerk reaction, with her arms still looped his neck, Rinoa turned her head to her right to see who it was yelling that at them. Meanwhile, she felt a slight pressing on her left cheek. She immediately felt her body temperature spike right then and there.

'_Oh no, he accidentally thought that was a cue to kiss me for the act…what do I do?_' she mused, suddenly shifting gears of thought afterwards, '-_Aah… I have nothing to lose here, it's just one person._'

Rinoa swiftly tilted her head back and readjusted herself so that she could kiss him on the lips instead of him kissing her on the cheek. In midst of all of this, a funny thought came to mind and it took all she had not to smirk about it.

After it ended and the passerby left in disgust or had somewhere to go, she wasn't so sure since she couldn't visually verify her claims, Rinoa finally let her arms go from his neck and stopped withholding the budding yet mildly awkward smirk.

"…I have a funny feeling that this wouldn't have happened if I'd been wearing high platform shoes or stilettos." she smartly remarked, bringing a hand to her cheek, eventually looping a finger to her ear to tuck an errant stand of hair behind it. "Either way…I thought you were…um, weren't going to do this unless if it was a Nat-related incident."

It didn't seem to be much of a coincidence to Rinoa when he suddenly decided to choose that very moment to start walking again. "I…wasn't rationally thinking. I just assumed that the person yelling at us was her because we were the only ones in detention." Squall turned to face her. "I…also assumed that you were going to initiate something regardless since we were in that particular position so…I apologize for my assumptions there."

"Please, don't worry about it. I'm perfectly fine." she deflected before her grin made a turn for the comical. "If you feel like it's absolutely necessary to annoy random people who tell us to '_get a room'_ by smooching me, you go ahead and do that Squall."

Needless to say, Squall rolled his eyes there. "Quit trying to be cute. You know that was a misunderstanding."

"I know, I just thought it would be funny to say that. But, you know, I think this is a good thing."

"…You're going to have to explain that one to me. I don't see the upside to looking like a-"

"-I think that it proves that you're willing to do whatever it takes for this and that you don't care about what others think." she explained. "I mean, kissing me is probably the last thing you have on your mind or want to do so, that's got to mean something. I think we'll be in good shape for whatever Nat might throw at us because you're willing to go the extra mile."

"You…have a point there."

"But, on the other hand, I have something to confess to you."

He stopped on a dime and looked her square in the eye. Rinoa lightly flinched. She didn't mean to say it like it was something earth-shattering or that she was going to say something that anyone could have possibly pulled from a harlequin book, one where the main character has an epiphany and suddenly declares her love for the male lead, that she finally confronts her love interest about carrying his child or any of that clichéd stuff. Well…it was a revelation in any case, but nothing to the scale of that. Hell, even if she were to admit to him that he was an awesome at kissing or something equally as trivial, Rinoa felt that that would have made for something more interesting than what she was going to say next.

"No, no, nothing like that." she said. "It's just that these past few days have made me realize that I'm lucky enough to have great friends who'll stick by me no matter what and that I…don't really care about what people think anymore as long as I have them by my side. Right now, I could stuff a pillow down my shirt and I'd care less about what Nat or anyone else would say. So what I'm trying to get at is that…I'm doing this for you now, not the other way around anymore. "

Rinoa bit the inside of her lip nervously before continuing, worried that it would get any cornier. "I want to make sure that you win your battle against her and pass Lit. You've…helped me change the way I was thinking instead of the other way around. It was childish to worry about stupid stuff like instead of appreciating and focusing on what I did have. So, before I babble anymore…I owe you a lot. Thank you for everything you've done for me."

Right then and there, she saw something she'd never thought she'd ever see on his face — the undeniable beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips and a confused look on his face at the same time.

"…I think that this is _now_ the strangest thing I've been thanked for. I didn't have any part in that."

She smiled back at him, ignoring his resistance to her big thank you. "…You're_ welcome_ Squall."

He waved her off. "Whatever."

"Alright then, since I can see that you don't want to be thanked for that, can I thank you for something even weirder that you _did_ have a part in?" she joshed.

"…Don't even go there Rinoa."

She laughed. "Okay, okay, I'll stop."

Right as her words died on her lips, her mind took up the slack. There had been another revelation that she had discovered not too long ago, only this one was one that she didn't have the courage to utter aloud, never mind admit a few minutes ago.

'_I might have been trying to joke with you about it Squall but…I finally figured out what I couldn't earlier, the reason why I didn't want to say what I said._'

'…_Even though I don't have any feelings for you in __**that**__ way, I think… I think I like being kissed by you._'

As soon as her thoughts ebbed a little and that truth had finalized in her head, Rinoa felt the need for a distraction. When a question she _could_ ask him popped into her head seconds later, she felt a surge of relief coursing through her veins.

"Hey, Squall? I got a question for you and I promise that it has nothing to do with the joke I was going to say earlier."

He turned his head to face her and nothing more.

"I know that this'll sound random but…what does your mom think of us-" Before she actually said the word, Rinoa couldn't resist breaking out the bunny ear quotations, "...'_dating_'?"

Squall shot a slightly awkward look at her. Rinoa bit the inside of her lip for the second time in this short while. Maybe asking a question like that wasn't going to help distract her any. Fortunately, the level of awkwardness wasn't what she thought it was since he answered her a couple of seconds later.

"…She's glad that I'm trying to get back to normal again although she also warned me to be more...careful." He tried his best to appear stony-faced and nonchalant about what he had just said but…his secret embarrassment somehow managed to permeate the façade a little. However, this hadn't really mattered in the grand scheme of things since he was still able to turn the focus onto her anyway. "..You're redder than a tomato right now."

Raising a hand up to her cheeks, Rinoa felt the telltale warmth proving his accusations true.

"_Sorry._" she gulped. "I'm still not used to thinking of that side of you—_wait_, that didn't come out right, did it?"

"No, but I understood anyway." he said rather dully before changing the subject, or rather ending the subject by passing the main entrance's doors and prematurely fishing for his keys in his pockets. Rinoa secretly sighed at her gaffe.

'_Oh well,'_ she mused, '-_at least I got the answer to the question. Wasn't a good distraction though.'_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Ah, I felt like this was a nice place to end it considering I'm gonna hop and skip through some days to get things going (yeah, I had to take advantage of the alone time post-detention so I couldn't help myself there). Hope you liked it despite the shortness.

_-Emerald-Latias _

**Random Tidbits -** The only one for this chapter has to do with the whole 'What does your mom think about us dating?' bit. That part had been originally been written for Chapter 30, but I was never able to fit it in properly because I kept on rewriting that one. Somehow, I felt that it was one of the few omitted bits worth keeping so I saved it on my notes file for this fic and put it in here, adapting it a little for this chapter.


	39. Chapter XXXVIII – Yourself or Someone Li

**Author's Notes – **I'm in a really good mood now, so I'm gonna try my best to keep this craziness up. Oh, and by the way, just to clarify one thing, Rinoa only admitted to liking Squall's kisses, not that she had any feelings for him.

Okay, now that that's done, onwards!

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXXVIII – Yourself or Someone Like You**

_-_

_Cause I cannot stand still,  
I can't be this unsturdy,  
This cannot be happening,  
Cause I'm waiting for tonight,  
Been waiting for tomorrow,  
And I'm somewhere in between,  
What is real and just a dream?_

_**-Lifehouse, Somewhere In Between.  
**_

_-_

'_I'm dreaming, nothing more to it,' _she mentally told herself. '-_Looks like it's one of those again. Nice._'

The truth was that she was indeed dreaming, physically lying in her bed but mentally elsewhere. More specifically, in her mind's conjured version of the infirmary which, ironically enough, was also a pretty accurate version of it to boot. It wasn't often where she could tell that she was in a dreaming state, but every so often, her mind allowed her to have the capacity of controlling her actions within the dream's alternate universe. More often than not, they made for the best kind of dreams because they were so random yet so interesting, like she was starring in a 'Create Your Own Adventure' book where she was the main character.

Needless to say, they were the very few dreams she remembered the next morning.

Right now, dream-Rinoa was sitting on an infirmary bed, aimlessly hanging her legs off of the mattress, twiddling her thumbs as well. She was by herself. There was no dream-Kadowaki to be seen, nor were there any injured dream students for that matter.

'_Hm. I wonder why dream-me is here. Better check for injuries._'

Sure enough, after a quick scan of her features, she found nothing outwardly wrong with herself. She even stood up and jumped around for good measure and still came up with nothing, zip, nada.

'_Well, whatever dream-me has is going to secretly kill me.'_ In a morbid kind of way, she laughed at that thought. '_…Unless if I'm not here for me. Who knows?_'

Bored with the stillness, dream-Rinoa walked over to the other side of the infirmary to check what she looked like in the mirror. The clothes she'd seen herself wearing during the once-over scan she'd performed on herself wasn't something she owned so it was just as likely that her dream doppelganger wasn't her exact replica feature-wise. Case and point, she would have never worn a midriff-baring midnight-blue halter top with tight and extremely low-rise dark jeans in real life. A midnight-blue top? Sure, as long as it covered everything and was decent enough. Jeans? No problem as long as they were mid-rise without the fabric clinging onto her legs and hips for dear life.

'_Okay, my face is the same although I'm wearing different make-up and my hair now has some honey-blonde streaks in it…_' she mentally assessed, '_My body's a little more toned and-_' She lifted her shirt up when she saw a strange glint.

'_Weird…dream-me must have thought that it was cool to have her belly button pierced. –No wait, that's only a body clip.' _Dream-Rinoa took it off and put it aside on Kadowaki's desk. _'Hyne, I feel like laughing. No, I feel like I've been made-over and forced to exercise by Adrienne in my sleep._'

Right after she put her top back down, or as far down as she could, dream-Rinoa thought of looking around to find some more comfortable clothes to walk around in. Sure, what she had on now was pretty but, Hyne almighty was it ever annoying when her first and never-ending instinct was to cover herself. That and it was impossible to bend in the jeans. By God, were they ever impossible to bend in.

In spite of that thought, something was pulling at her even more greatly. Taking off her ballet flats, the only comfy aspect of the outfit she was wearing, dream-Rinoa stepped on the nearby scale. With the greatest of ease, she nudged the measure accordingly down the slider until she found the exact number - her number. She smiled with unfettered glee. At least this part of the dream was something worth dreaming about. Cool clothes and make-up was a nice bonus but it paled in comparison to the perfect number on that scale. It wasn't different from the one Dr. Kadowaki had obtained last Wednesday but the fact that no one was condemning her for it was what was so alluring. The idea of her number not being scrutinized, valued and assessed was a wonderful escape.

Just as she stepped off from the scale, the sound of footsteps echoed from the entrance of the room. Dream-Rinoa turned around and smiled as she slipped her ballet flats back on. It was Squall, well, _dream-Squall_ in this case, dressed in a plain white and fitted v-neck t-shirt and dark, boot-cut jeans, something she thought wasn't too much of a stretch from the things he wore in real life. Better still, he was carrying a bunch of folded clothes underneath his one arm, clothes she assumed were for her.

"Hi Squall. Those clothes mine?" she greeted. He nodded and walked over to hand them to her. Dream-Rinoa placed them on the desk and eyed each piece of clothing individually.

"So…does this mean you're done playing dress up?" he asked before she had managed to lift the first article of clothing up.

"Um, sure." she said uncertainly, not sure what the context dream-Squall had meant that in. "But, um, could you refresh my memory? My head's a little foggy for some reason." she expertly lied, holding up a nice midnight-blue tank top at the same time.

"That doesn't surprise me." he dryly said. "I suppose that hanging around those airheads temporarily numbed your brain?"

"Yeah, I guess…" she absentmindedly agreed, lifting up a nice pair of jeans from the bottom of the pile.

"…They make you drink a lot?"

Suddenly, dream-Rinoa had an idea. Maybe this was all based on prior events? The uncomfortable clothes seemed to be a reasonable metaphor for the costume she'd worn at the Halloween party, same with Adrienne trying to get her to drink some more. Either way, if she said something that didn't make sense, it wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things. More likely than not, dream-Squall would correct her on the factual errors she made.

"No, I somehow got around them bugging me about that. I think it was because I spent most of my time on babysitting one of them in the washroom because she drank way too much."

"I assume that was Nat?" he offered. Dream-Rinoa nearly did a double-take. Boy, was he good.

"Yes. It was her." she answered. Gathering the items in her arms, she turned around to face him. "I'm just going to change behind that curtain, okay? I'll still be listening if you ask or tell me anything else."

And with that, she walked back over to where she originally found herself in this dream. After she dumped her clothes on the bed, dream-Rinoa shut the curtains for some privacy, though the point was probably moot since it was dream-Squall and not regular Squall. Still, she carried on as if it were regular Squall just out of habit.

Sitting on the side of the bed, she undid the halter's knot and readied herself to shimmy out of the stretchy fabric. Just at this moment, dream-Rinoa stopped, half-expecting dream-Squall to barge through the curtain in an un-Squall-like way akin to the only other Squall dream she had before. Half a minute had passed and there hadn't been anything.

'_Hm,' _dream-Rinoa started to muse, '_-Maybe he's staying in-character since I can actually influence this dream? That makes sense. But why do I feel vaguely and weirdly disappointed?_'

"_Did you die in there?_" his voice wise-cracked from the other side of the divide. Dream-Rinoa smirked.

"No, this stupid top they put me in is a pain in the ass to get out of. I think I need scissors." she yelled back, not lying in the slightest. The lycra in the outfit seemingly hated her.

"_Do you want me to find some?"_

Dream-Rinoa smirked some more. "No, I was just being lazy. I'll be out in a minute."

"_Alright._"

With a forceful tug, she stripped the glorified blue band of fabric off of her. Dream-Rinoa swiftly pulled the blue tank top on. The halter had a built-in bra so she had no choice but to go braless while she was wearing the new tank. Not that she needed it because the similarly stretchy material kept everything in place, but it still felt weird nonetheless. Next on the list was the pants and luckily enough for her, the ones she originally had on wasn't as much of a pain to get off like she'd assumed they would have been. She slipped on the new pair and she instantly felt the relief setting in. They were far more comfortable and less itchy, the waist was indeed higher and the legs were only a straight cut, form-fitting but not insanely tight. And boy could she ever bend in them.

Right before she had opened the curtain again, dream-Rinoa took a look at the clock. The time glared a ruby-red 12:28 AM back at her and she softly sighed. If they had been following the timeline of October 30th here, then she knew what scene they'd already passed in that three-act play.

Drawing the curtains to the side, dream-Rinoa calmly set her sights on those blue eyes of his. She had no idea what his relation to her was in this dream, but she supposed it didn't matter. After all, she had the right to play and mould this anyway she wished. Now she wished to fill him in on the details like a close friend would to another.

"Squall, I got to be honest with you. I blocked part of tonight out and that's why I asked you to refresh my memory." It felt strange to say it so calmly but dream-Rinoa realized that she'd have nothing to lose, only a hypothetical reaction to gain. "I was _with_ someone tonight and...we didn't use any protection."

He gave her a look. "I'm eighteen Rinoa. My ears aren't going to fall off if you said that you had one night stand."

To avoid breaking the dream's fourth wall, dream-Rinoa stopped herself from laughing at the fact that regular Squall had practically said the same kind of thing in real life. She didn't want this experiment to end. "Er...okay, um…why are you more concerned over the words I chose to use instead of the fact that I might get pregnant or a disease from this?"

"Because you didn't have a one night stand, I stopped you from going through with that."

"…Really? So I actually blacked out?"

Dream-Squall nodded. "The doctor figured out that you fainted because you hadn't eaten enough to keep your energy levels up."

'_Oh great, now it's turning into that. Hyne, I thought this was going to be an interesting dream like these normally are._' she mentally griped before a figurative light-bulb turned on afterwards. '_Wait. Nothing's stopping me from changing things around. I don't have to let the dream make all of the rules. I can play by my own._'

"Well, I'm fine now Squall. Whatever stuff Dr. Kadowaki gave me is working and I don't feel woozy anymore." Dream-Rinoa reassured. Then, just as if the power of suggestion was enough, she felt ten times better.

"Alright." Dream-Squall said, sitting on a random stool by the desk. "Dr. Kadowaki told me that she had to go to bed so she left me in charge of watching over you."

"That's okay. After all, it is Saturday night; she does need some sleep from taking care of students in the infirmary all week." she added. "Come to think of it, how did you get me in here if it's Saturday?"

"Random series of events."

The answer was cheap but dream-Rinoa didn't honestly care. Right now, she was only focused on what dream-Squall's relation to her was in this alternate universe, the last piece in this puzzle. The teenager had changed her mind on what she said earlier since she really didn't have anything better to do, not to mention was mildly curious as to what her mind conjured up about them. She sat herself on the desk right beside him.

"I guess I was lucky then." she commented.

He shrugged. "Whatever."

'_Boy, is that dream-Squall a dead-ringer for real Squall._' she mused. '_I must be hanging around him too much._'

She brushed it off. "Okay, okay. I'll stop with the '_being lucky'_ talk but…I have to ask you something."

"Like what?"

"How did you stop me from…the guy I was with from having-" Once again, she couldn't bring herself to saying the words and opted to do the finger gestures, despite the fact that it was virtually guaranteed that no one was going to barge in on them.

The pain she saw flickering in his eyes for a brief moment made dream-Rinoa frown. It must have been a close call from saving her from Tristan, not that he was a bad person but…"-Was it that close from not being able to stop him?" she asked further.

He shook his head and sighed. Uh oh, that wasn't a good sign. "…I guess you're more confused than I thought."

…_**Oh.**_

Dream-Rinoa vigorously rubbed her eyes. "It wasn't another person…it was you, wasn't it?"

He shyly nodded. "I…was trying to jog your memory earlier so I could apologize for letting go that far."

Once this information was finally revealed, dream-Rinoa sighed in disgust at herself. "_Ugh…not again._"

Dream-Squall gave her a funny look. "Uh Rinoa…that was the only time this has happened."

"No, no…it's just that-" She paused. There was no way to explain this without breaking the fourth wall. Oh well, screw it. "This is a dream, you're a dream and I said '_Ugh…not again_' because I had another dream where you, well, the only other one with you in it, almost went all the way with me then."

Now dream-Squall was staring her down like she was a mental patient. "…I'm not a dream. You're mistaken."

"No, you are. Watch." She got up and slapped him hard across the face to prove her point. Then, out of nowhere, she slapped him an extra three times for good measure. "Now, did that hurt?"

"No. It felt…nice?" he answered confusedly.

"See? You're in my dream because I had the power to make my slaps feel nice when it should have hurt…_a lot._"

"...I guess I can't argue with that logic." he resigned.

With that, dream-Rinoa went to back to sitting on the desk, swinging her legs from the edge of it. It was a long and awkward minute before she decided to make the most of the impartial opinion she potentially had at her fingertips. "Um…would you mind it if I asked you a question?"

"I'm just a dream, why should you care if I mind?"

"_Um_…force of habit." she answered rather sheepishly, realizing that he indeed had a point there. "You're acting exactly like the person you're supposed to be in real life so it's somewhat hard to believe that you're not him."

He shrugged. "Fair enough. So what is it that you want to ask me?"

"Could you possibly make sense or give me an idea of why all my dreams that you're in always has to do with_ these_ kinds of things happening?"

Dream-Squall took a moment to collect his thoughts. "Are we…together in real life?"

"No."

"…Do you have any feelings for me in any way?"

"No, I don't— _Actually_…I don't think this counts but…" Even though all of this wasn't real, dream-Rinoa's cheeks burned a bright and warm red. She continued in a hushed whisper as if it was a secret. "…_You're really good at kissing in real life and I, sort of like it whenever we have to for whatever reason._"

Dream-Squall arched a brow. "…_For whatever reason?_ I thought you said that we weren't a couple."

"Oh no, we aren't but it's kind of complicated. We're faking a relationship to get rid of this stereotype people have of me and the real you is doing it for a distraction because he lost his girlfriend and newborn daughter last August so…yeah."

"…I sound like I'm one screwed up person."

Dream-Rinoa laughed at his assessment of his real-life counterpart. "No, you're just going through a rough time right now, that's all."

"Hm." Dream-Squall paused to gather his thoughts once again. "Has the real me made advances towards you?"

"No. You haven't. In fact, you tend to avoid the fake displays of affection as much as you can."

"…So I assume he acts differently towards you afterwards when you have to do them?"

"Not really, he doesn't say much after so I can't tell. But the afternoon after I found out about his little girl and girlfriend passing away, he kissed me to test my words after I told him that I wouldn't mind whatever he'd have to do for this act to work and…to make a long story short, he got carried away because his mind was substituting me for his old girlfriend in his head. Well…that's my theory anyway."

"Maybe the dreams mean that you want a deeper connection with him but you're afraid of actually going through with it."

Dream-Rinoa contemplatively pursed her lips. "Hm, I would like to help him and be his friend on some level but…I'm not still seeing the full picture here. Could you explain some more?"

"Alright." Dream-Squall sighed a little. "If he accidentally showed you his vulnerable side that one time, maybe you enjoy it because you know that it's the only way to break down his defences and get closer to him in a way."

"Mm…I'm not sure that's it." Rinoa admitted in all honesty. "As embarrassing as it is to say this…that dream that I was talking about earlier was before I knew about his girlfriend and daughter and, um, a part of me didn't want to stop your …_aggressive _advances in that dream. I don't know about what happened or how we know each other in the context of this dream, so I can't say anything about this time."

"We've known each other for a couple of months. I was forced to be your assignment partner so that's how I got to know you on top of bumping into each other a fair amount." he started to explain. "Tonight…almost happened because you were very lonely. You talked about your old boyfriend."

"…_I see._" she quietly added. "…That happened in real life too, only…I didn't stop myself with another guy and I regretted it the moment after. I got pregnant because of that night but I…miscarried before I even knew about the baby."

Dream-Squall grimaced. "…Looks like you're heading down the same path with the real me."

"No, I'm not! I'm being careful not to repeat my mistakes." Dream-Rinoa defensively countered, jumping off from desk abruptly at the same time. She looked him straight in the eye and uttered, "I'd never do that to the real you, he's been through enough. I'm _not_ going to put him through more drama."

Dream-Squall shook his head. "-Doesn't matter. Whether it's sex or a basic kiss, chances are you wanted both for the same reason – to fill an emotional void in your life."

"Don't you dare accuse me of being like that. You _don't _know me."

"Fine, I don't know the _real _you, but I'm still apart of your imagination. Besides, you asked my opinion on this and I gave you my answer." he spat. "But let me ask you this. Did you get help or talk to someone after that episode?"

Dream-Rinoa froze. She didn't like where this was going. "No, I didn't. It…it was too embarrassing. Only the real you knows that I was pregnant for awhile but he doesn't know how it happened. He didn't ask me about th—"

"—Spare me the irrelevant details. The point is that you didn't find help." he sharply interjected. "And whether you like it or not, behaviours like that don't disappear unless you confront them. It'll only get worse the longer you ignore it."

"Yeah well, look whose talking." she countered. "You didn't get help for your problems and I didn't force a sermon down your throat."

"You're talking about the real Squall, not me. And it seems to me like you're not thinking straight because I hit a button." he retorted. "Either way, you may think you're not repeating the same mistakes but it'll only be a matter of time before you blur the lines and take things too far. And if he's not getting help either, consider it a guarantee."

'_No, no, no…you're just a dream!' _she frantically thought. _'...You're not supposed to say things like that.'_

Without warning, she slowly dropped to the floor, feeling like the magical powers she'd endowed herself with when she told him that Dr. Kadowaki had given her something had suddenly stopped working. Now she didn't feel like she was very much in control of this dream anymore as her hands brushed the cold and hard tiles. The dream had won and she'd relinquished the reigns over it.

When dream-Rinoa heard a pair of footsteps coming her way, she looked the other way, shielding her vision from him.

"_Please…please…just don't say anything else._" she whispered. "_I don't want to hear it anymore. I already know I'm screwed up enough as it is._"

Instead of hearing another word from him, she felt his arms gently pick her up from the ground with ease. Dream-Rinoa had her eyes closed so her other senses worked double-time to compensate for the perceived loss. The electrifying sizzle of his touch coursing up her nerves, the heat radiating from his body, the way the taut muscles of his stomach and arms felt against her skin with only the thin pieces of their shirts' fabric acting as the barrier between them_…_it was all too much. She had to open her eyes.

—And that's when she felt the mattress gently caress her back.

Dream-Rinoa looked up at him with a questionable look on her face. _He wasn't going to……?_

"What are you doing?" she asked. Before now, all he had done was stand there at her bedside, watching her serenely. Now, he was lowering himself closer and closer to her.

"…_Saving the real me from you._" he softly answered in an unintentionally-seductive manner. Not even a split second later and he already had a hand firmly planted beside her, giving him the necessary leverage to kiss her on the lips.

This kiss wasn't by any means '_chaste,_' '_sweet and lovely.'_ Nor could it be classified as being '_inflected by neediness, infused with melancholy and peppered with longing'_ or any of those things. It was everything that the real Squall Leonhart hadn't shown her through the chance embraces they'd shared, void of all inherent guilt associated with pressing against his lips or the hidden emotions which never failed to come through. Because this was a dream, she felt encouraged to explore every opportunity to vent her frustrations and loneliness with, opportunities she didn't have in real life. Conversely, because it was Squall's doppelganger, that forced her to keep her eyes away from his face. She respected the real Squall and she'd be damned if she were to sully his image by associating him to what she was about to do with this dream-version of him to make sure that he wasn't at the mercy of the most basic of her emotional wants and needs.

Her hands had found their way to the hem of his shirt and wasted no time in pulling it over his head and tossing it on the floor, quickly moving on to gently tracing the contours of his defined abdominal muscles with her fingertips and peppering butterfly kisses along his neck and chest. He pulled away from her for a moment only to do the same to her by gently taking hold of the folds of her tank top's bottom, purposely drawing out his movements by going more slowly and more sensuously to make her truly feel like each inch of fabric being pulled upwards was simply melting away and off of her frame. When the said piece of clothing was discarded with abandon, she roped her arms around his neck to bring him closer to her, his masculine frame firmly pressed against her exposed chest.

She kissed him softly during this time, not allowing him to be any further than a fraction of an inch away. As the soft kisses turned more and more forceful as time went on, this encouraged new developments to occur as he explored other areas further down the uncovered part of her body. While he was doing that, she took things even further by unbuttoning his jeans. The pressure she soon felt lumping against her own denim-clad hips felt pleasurable and almost welcome as his own hips ground into hers, but alas, she suddenly had a change of heart. Or maybe she had finally listened to what her heart was saying in the first place. Either way, her lithe fingers couldn't commit to getting anywhere near the zipper of his pants and going past the point of no return. Instead, she willed herself to wake up.

...And her wish had come true.

Her cell phone's extremely loud ringer had woken her up at 6:38 AM and she had no idea who was calling.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **No, I'm not on crack. I just got a really cracked out idea (the dream) and I somehow managed to incorporate pretty much everything from the story in it. I don't even know how the hell I did that. So...uh...enjoy?

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbits – **The title of this chapter comes from Matchbox Twenty's first album and all of the descriptions in the quotation marks come from the other two chapters where Squall had kissed her to show that dream-Squall was going out of his way to not be like him to help Rinoa get this out of her system. Also, during that scene, dream-Rinoa loops her arms around him in exactly the same manner she does in the first dream she has with Squall as well as when she kisses him in real life during the encounter with Nat. The change Rinoa notices about her hair was obviously a reference to the game.


	40. Chapter XXXIX – Time Warp

**Author's Notes – **_Oh my freakin' God._ I am so sorry for any of you who started reading that last chapter from 11:30 pm on Tuesday to 1:00 am on Wednesday Eastern time. For some reason, I don't tend to catch much of my errors/typos/omissions on Word (I usually catch them while I'm looking at the Fanfiction's Live Preview feature) and last chapter was riddled with so many mistakes I had to shake my head. I suppose it doesn't help when you write the bulk of a chapter on around five hours of sleep.

_...Yeesh. _I can only hope that the lot of you aren't night owls like me. But can't I pretend that dream-worlds have alternate methods of writing things? The kind where you skim over errors and stuff? _**No?**_ _What do you mean that dream-Squall doesn't approve of that?_ Well, I'll be more careful this time.

Anyways, I'd better get this chapter going cowpokes. Can't wait forever. ;)

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XXXIX – Time Warp**

-

_Anytime you need someone,  
Somebody strong to lean on,  
Well you can count on me to hold you till the healing is done,  
And every time you fall apart, you can hide here in my arms,  
And you can count on me to hold you till that feeling is gone so you can live today,  
Seems so long to yesterday,  
Keep on counting on me to carry you till you carry on._

_**-Default, Count On Me.**_

-

Waking up in a hazy stupor, Rinoa fumbled for her cell phone on the nearby nightstand as quickly as she could, fuelled by the irrational notion that her ringer was going to wake up her parents somehow. With the phone finally in hand, the lit up display showed that this wasn't a text but rather an actual call. After rubbing her eyes with the side of her hand, she flipped the phone's cover open.

"_Um…hello?_" she groggily answered, not knowing who it was.

"…_You sound like you're half-dead._"

Rinoa bit back a laugh. "_Good morning to you too Squall._" she sarcastically replied. "_You…__**do**__ know what time it is, right?_"

"_It's 6:40…why does that matter?_"

"I was sleeping." she flatly answered. "How in Hyne's name can you sound so awake so early in the morning?"

"_I always get up at 6:00._"

Rinoa's facial expression recoiled in mock-disgust. "…Doing what?"

"_Exercising. _I_t's the only time during the day where I can do it without being bothered._"

In mid-yawn, Rinoa involuntarily exhaled. Hard. '_Ah—I don't need that mental picture! Ugh. Too late._'

After several seconds of what must have been silence on her end, she heard his voice in the receiver again. "…_Are you alright?_"

"_Er_…yeah…_I just_…stubbed my toes…_somehow._" she fibbed. "Um…so was there a reason you called?"

"_I wanted to know if you have a badminton racquet for tonight's practice._" he explained. "_I have a spare if you don't._"

"…_Um_…" Rinoa blinked before it finally clicked in her brain. "_-Oh_ right, practice is tonight. I have a racquet but I'd have to dig through some boxes in my basement so it would probably be easier if I borrowed yours."

"_Alright._"

"So…was that all you wanted to talk to me about Squall?"

There was a pause before he answered. He must have been thinking during that time. "_Considering that I'll have to bring you home after practice, if you wanted to go to school with me too, I have no problems with picking you up._"

"Sure. Just…no sudden detours, okay? I haven't been getting along with my art teacher lately and if he found out that I was late because of my _'boyfriend'_, well, that'd be the last nail in the coffin."

"…_I'll make sure to be extra late then._" he dryly replied. Rinoa nearly had a coronary.

"Okay mister, I may be half-asleep but I have to ask where are you hiding the real Squall Leonhart?"

"_I don't think I have to hide myself in my own house._" he continued in a deadpan tone, completely ignoring her joke. "_But if you have to ask, I felt like practicing being out-of-character._"

"…_Right._" she drawled. "I'm guessing that you're enjoying this because you just realized that toying with people's minds is a fun thing to do."

"…_I'd be lying if I said that I didn't agree with that._"

Rinoa let out a laugh. "I think I'm starting to be a bad influence on you. Tricking people, dirty talk, making out in front of a detention monitor, inflicting undue mental torture onto Nat…Hyne, I almost don't want to know what's next. Actually, scratch that, I don't want to know how we all managed to do all of this in only two weeks."

The line went silent for a moment. "…_Are sure that it's only been two weeks?_"

"Yeah, we made the agreement to help each other on the 2nd and yesterday was the 16th so…that would make it two weeks. Wednesday will make it a week since we've let people know that we're 'dating' but…it feels like it's been so much longer."

"_I'll…say._" he quietly agreed. His demure, almost embarrassed tone caught Rinoa mildly off-guard until she realized what he might have thinking — that if they were to follow the actual timeline, she found about his daughter only ten days after starting this. Conversely, if she were to think in the same manner, he technically found out about her baby nine days after she essentially prodded him into helping her. But still, there had to be some explanation for this gap between the real and perceived amount of time which had passed.

All of a sudden, Rinoa's mind had come up with a plausible theory to explain the disparity.

"Actually, I think I have an idea of why it feels like it's been so much longer than it is." she began to explain. "Except for that one Friday where I was at home sick, I think we've pretty much spent more time together than normal people would within those two weeks so…that's probably why it seems longer. Not to mention, I've also been noticing that I haven't been spending as much time with my friends in the last while so it's almost like we're doing the same kinds of mistakes new couples do too."

"…_Makes sense._" he concurred before switching gears. "_I'll be over at seven-thirty to pick you up._"

"Sure. I'll make sure to tell my mom about it. Bye."

"_Bye._"

_Click._

Setting down her phone on the nightstand, Rinoa rolled out of bed and swung her feet over her mattress's edge; put her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. Rinoa deeply sighed. She knew that it was only 6:51 so it wasn't like she didn't have time to waste.

'_I hope this doesn't continue as fast as it has. Whether it's felt longer or not, I don't want to screw up his life anymore than it already is. I want to help, not hurt._'

'_God, I hope dream-Squall was wrong._'

'_Still, it's only been two weeks and he's starting to act differently towards me, even joking around even. Am I uncovering the person he truly was before the incident occurred? Can I take it as a sign that I'm helping him get his life back on track or is this only happening because we shared personal secrets with each other?_'

Rinoa flopped back onto the mattress with a heavy thud. '_Hyne, I'm so confused._'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Regardless of her wish to make time stand still this morning, time had escaped her and before she knew it, Squall was due at the door any minute now. Fiddling with the straps of her backpack, she stayed on the lookout for his car to pull into the driveway while keeping tabs on the current time. On her last count, it was 7:28 and she was starting to worry. She looked back to the living room sofa where her mom was reading the morning paper. Catching her daughter's glance, Julia set it down.

"He'll be here before you know it Rinoa, there's no need to worry." she asserted. Rinoa nodded.

"I know mom, it's just that this weather…I had no idea it was this snowy when he called earlier this morning. I feel bad."

"You shouldn't feel guilty if he offered to take you Rinoa. If he felt that it wouldn't be safe, he wouldn't have said anything."

"Yeah but, I don't think he ever takes his bus and since we live so close to his house…he might have felt obligated to offer to pick me up after asking about the badminton racquet." she argued. Julia offered her a warm smile after this.

"I don't think he sees picking you up as a burden honey. I think he'd enjoy—" Her mother's sentence was cut off by a couple of quick knocks. Rinoa quickly swivelled her head to see out of the window. When she saw nothing but the blindingly white-landscape in front of her, she quirked an eyebrow — who could be knocking on her door?

Regardless of that question in her mind, Rinoa walked past the living room's window and into the entranceway to open the door. Her eyes immediately widened. Covered in snow from his head to his toes, it was Squall who was on the other side. Before she said a single word, she made sure to usher him inside and close the door.

"Hyne…did something happen to you?" she asked.

"I'm fine." he coolly replied. "The car wouldn't start so I had to run over here."

Rinoa bit her lip. "I guess this puts a wrench in our plans to show up at practice then."

He shrugged. "That's the least of my worries."

"Yeah, I see what you mean. I don't know if my bus driver will let you on since you don't take my bus and since there's…not a lot of free room in there to start with because I'm one of the last to be picked up." Rinoa turned towards her mom. "Mom, if Squall can't get on my bus, could you drive us to school?"

Julia grimaced. "I'd like to Rinoa but I'm not the one with the car this morning, I'm carpooling with someone at work today."

"_Oh_, okay." Rinoa mumbled. "So if he can't get on…what do we do?"

"I'm not sure." The older woman shifted her sights onto Squall. "Do you have any idea of when and where your bus is supposed to come Squall?"

"…I'm supposed to be on this bus but I haven't taken it in over a year so I don't know if it'll cause any problems."

"Hm, I'm sure you'll be fine then if you're on the list. If not, I'm sure I can arrange something."

He gave her mom a polite nod. "Thanks."

"It's no problem." she replied before casually glancing out of the living room's window. "—Oh, there it is, you'd better go now."

And with that, they both went outside to catch the aforementioned bus with Rinoa leading the way. Once she was on the top step of the bus, the teenager immediately started explaining the situation when the bus driver saw Squall out of the corner of his eyes.

"Um…he's actually on this route but the thing is that he normally drives. His car broke down so I was wondering if he could take the bus with me today."

The driver gave her a sceptical look. "What's your name boy?"

Rinoa moved aside so he could properly see him. "Squall Leonhart."

"Nope, never seen that name on the list." the grey-haired man said from memory. "I'm sorry but rules are rules. Can't have anyone who's not on the list for insurance purposes."

Squall sighed. "It might be possible that my name's under Squall Loire."

The middle-aged driver quickly pulled out a clipboard from beside his seat and looked it over before looking back at him. "Hm. There's a Squall Loire here but you look nothing like the picture ID beside it. How do I know that you're not using this boy's name?"

The teenager rolled his eyes. "That picture was taken over two years ago so of course I'm not going to look the same. It's likely that they haven't updated the photo because I haven't taken the bus in over a year."

"That may be true but the information says that the photo during the Grade Eleven year which would make you 19. For all I know you could—"

Before the man continued, Squall slipped out his Garden ID from his pocket and thrust it in front of his face. "—Will this prove that I'm not trying to con you?"

The driver checked it over and gave it back to him. "Alright, but I'm going to look into this after I'm done my route and if it doesn't check out, I'm not letting you on tonight, you hear?"

"Sure, whatever."

After Squall had pocketed his ID, Rinoa proceeded to go down the aisle and look for a seat with Squall right behind her. Unfortunately, there were no completely-free seats and seats with two adjacent seats were slim pickings. It was halfway down the aisle when she noticed that Adrienne was flagging them down from a half-open seat on the very last row on Rinoa's left. Alexis was near her on the last seat on the other side but she was already sitting with someone else. Figuring that she wasn't going to find anything better for the two of them, Rinoa ushered Squall to follow her down to where Adrienne was. Regardless of their standing position, the bus started moving again.

Once they were there, another dilemma had set in. Despite her friend's trim frame, there was no way they going to cram the both of them beside Adrienne without someone falling off at every stop, turn or whatever. Rinoa stopped right before the last row and looked back at Squall.

"Would you mind it if you sat beside Adrienne while I sit on your lap? I'll put my bag on the aisle so I won't crush you."

He let out a near-audible sigh. "Doesn't look I have much of a choice anyway. People are glaring daggers at me already for holding the bus up."

Rinoa moved aside and let Squall go ahead. He shed his backpack and placed it against the bus's back emergency door and sat down beside her friend. Rinoa followed suit and after manoeuvring herself so that her knees weren't scraping the seat in front of her, she sat herself down on his lap. Squall had his hands lying on the outside of his legs. The teenager immediately swivelled her head to her right while being careful not to violently whip hair in Squall's face.

"No evil thoughts Adrienne. There weren't many other seats." Rinoa pre-emptively chided, waggling her pointer finger at her.

The other girl withheld a huge smirk. "I make no guarantees Rin." she joshed. "So what was the big commotion at the front about? I couldn't catch most of it because I was so far back."

"Oh that. Well, _apparently_, he looks too old." she explained, pointing her thumb in Squall's direction.

Adrienne glanced at Squall's side profile; he was looking the other way to avoid a face full of black hair, and laughed. "Oh no, if anyone can be accused of looking too old, it's him."

As if it was done on cue, the bus made an abrupt stop and Squall had to stop Rinoa's head from smacking into the seat in front of them by tightly securing her upper body with his arms. Seconds later, after uttering some well-deserved thanks to him, Rinoa couldn't help but agree with Adrienne. In fact, if she wasn't comfortably sitting on Squall's lap, she would have slunk downwards like she normally did during the oft times that _he_ was on the bus. Unbeknownst to Squall, her stomach wasn't in the usual knots which typically appeared whenever _he_ appeared, thanks to his firm and warm grip against her abdomen. With the combination of Adrienne on her right and Squall right under her, she felt safer than usual.

Trying to ignore the fact that Tyler had taken what seemed to be the last available seat two seats ahead of them, Rinoa carefully shifted her position a little so Squall could see more of her face rather than the back of her head.

"I think you're going to have to keep your hands there so I don't go careening into the seat in front of us the next time the bus stops. I think the bus driver hates me right now."

Adrienne laughed a little. "Nice excuse Rinoa."

Rinoa smirked back at her. "No, I'm serious. Didn't you see what just happened? I could have gotten a serious concussion because of that stop if Squall hadn't done anything."

"_Right_…" her friend drawled, her smirk drifting in Squall's direction. He tossed her a wary look.

"…I'm staying out of this."

"Good idea." Adrienne nodded. "Ah, okay, I'll stop kidding around _n_—"

Then, out of nowhere, the bus suddenly stopped again and Rinoa was once again saved from bruising her noggin by Squall's hold. Only this time, because she on a slight angle, his arms had to be higher up to achieve the same effect as last time. In that brief moment, she could feel his searing-hot hands branding her ribs while her head involuntarily spun leftward and looked past the seat. Any higher and he would have unintentionally held her down by her chest, but between that hypothetical case and the one they were now facing, she could have chosen the former if it meant that she was that much more restrained, less visible and still facing her seat companions. For the first time since the incident, Tyler had managed to lock eyes with her.

…And he seemed to have taken notice of the fact that she was sitting on another guy's lap. Not good. Not good at all.

Just as fast she saw him, Rinoa turned her head to look the other way and block him out. Squall and Adrienne seemed to have picked up on this. Squall especially since it sent a few tendrils of hair whipping his way.

"…You okay?" Adrienne asked. "You look a little white."

"Oh, is it snowing on top of my head in here?" Rinoa tried to josh. "…Okay, that was a bad joke. Um, I'm fine. A little dizzy though."

"You'd be green if you were dizzy Rinoa. Not blanched." he quietly pointed out.

Rinoa tried to stop herself from biting her lip or showing any other telltale sign that she wasn't telling the truth. "No, I'm fine you guys. I'm sure it'll go away."

Just then, she felt Squall's grip go a little tighter.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Save for the occasional glances she saw going her way, the rest of the bus trip went fairly smoothly, no more abrupt stops or anything. Adrienne had managed a few jokes and before she knew it, Rinoa was already unpeeling herself from Squall's lap, collecting her backpack and heading out of the bus in a timely fashion. Still, the lapse in perceived time had a way of catching up to her. Time seemingly stood still when Squall set her aside once they'd reached the main hallway inside of the Garden.

"…There was something wrong." he flatly stated, no question marks in sight.

Rinoa sighed. She had to make a decision, an important one at that. It all pertained to this morning's drama and the question of going too fast for their own good or the one about Squall himself. He wasn't acting like the person she first met and there was the issue of the fake boyfriend persona, but where was his true self in all of this? Did it bleed through some of the aspects of those façades somewhere or was it a third separate entity?

Surely, this wasn't commonplace for him to confront issues that didn't really concern him in any stretch of the imagination, but was it truly something his secret self did or was this an extension of his duties for the act? Once this information was shared, there was no going back and if she was going to divulge this, it came down to one notion. Was she willing to blur the lines of this working relationship and crossover to the unchartered boundaries of a deeper camaraderie?

With the news of her unexpected pregnancy, it wasn't a question of choice, as he found out about it by pure chance, but with her learning about his daughter and former girlfriend, he had the choice of denying it or…was she prodding him into thinking that it his secret was becoming increasingly obvious and that there was no other choice other than admitting?

Rinoa sighed. Either way, it was like their roles were being reversed; only it was ten times weirder to have him on the other side.

However, the true question at hand was this — would she be an even bigger hypocrite if she were to ignore his statement and carry on as if there was nothing wrong?

The answer in her head was a resounding '**yes**.'

'…_But do I want him to know because I want to or because I feel like I have to tell him to keep even?_' she wondered.

A few seconds later, she came to a decision. '_I want to help him but, at the same time, maybe I need a friend who I don't have to be afraid in confiding in too._'

"Alright Squall," she started, "…There _is_ something, but it's not really something that I should really say aloud since this is a public place so…"

After drawing a single deep breath for strength, Rinoa sat down on a fountain ledge and produced one of her notebooks and a pen by unzipping her backpack. He sat down beside her as she quietly scribbled on a fresh piece of lined paper. When she was done, she discreetly passed him the flipped-open notebook. While they had minutes to spare before their respective first classes, she was thankful that the other Garden students were creatures of habit that the bulk of them congregated inside of the classrooms do their mindless chattering and socializing.

-—-

_That guy who came on the bus after us…he was the person I was talking about when I said that I was briefly going out with someone in December while you were thinking of the original plan. We had a couple of dates that went really well but, I ended it abruptly on New Year's Eve because he was under the impression that I was easy and…wanted to go further. I haven't told anyone else about this until now._

_So…the truth is that, between this and the other thing, it's why I asked for your help in the first place. _

-—-

Right after he must have finished reading, he looked straight at her, trying to compute all of this newfound information that she'd just given him willingly out of nowhere. Trying to ease him out of think mode, she gave him a warm smile after she put the notebook and pen away.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you this earlier, it's just that I honestly wasn't ready to tell you that when we first met. But," she shyly started, "-after I thought about all you've done for me and all we've been through just now; it suddenly felt right telling you this."

Rinoa took another deep breath to keep strong. "Please don't take this the wrong way but…you're probably the person who I can relate to the most right now."

And with that statement, there truly was no going back. When he looked away, Rinoa's heart sank past her knees.

'_Hyne no! Why did I have to say something like that so soon? Now I've just made things awkward.'_

'_I should have known better after he sounded like he freaked over the fact that this has only been going on for two weeks. God! Way to go Rinoa, you just had to go and ruin everything in one stupid sentence.'_

Then out of nowhere, he stopped casting his gaze downward and looked her directly in the eye.

"…I think it's the same way for me too."

Rinoa froze right then and there —not only because of what Squall said but because of who happened to be standing behind him.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Sorry if that seems filler-ish to you guys again, I just really had to address the disparity between the perceived and actual time lapse. It was eating away at me. Hope it was still okay anyway.

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbits – **Unfortunately enough, the gap between actual/perceived time lapse problem is apparent in my other works too so, in Breaking Free, Squall and Rinoa have the same kind conversation in there too (somewhere in there, I dunno). The idea for having Rinoa sit on Squall's lap and him telling her that he was working out earlier this morning came from my original plans for this chapter, where I wanted to originally have a whole bunch of coincidental things happen after last chapter's dream sequence but…this idea sort of sprung out of my head instead. I think I was going to have Rinoa sleepily mumble, 'make sure your jeans are buttoned,' at the end of the call and have Squall wonder why she said that but, that was kind of out there so I opted not to.

Oh, and Rinoa's 'irrational fear' of having her ringer wake up her parents comes from my own experiences with my alarm clock.


	41. Chapter XL – Falling In and Out of Place

**Author's Notes - **Ah, I'm anticipating this one to be late on account of school (midterms are evil, I tell you), but if it's not extraordinarily, hooray for me. Haha. Either way, I don't have anything to really say so enjoy. :)

Oh wait, never mind, there is something. Woohoo, forty chapters! Wow, I'm really dragging this on, aren't I? I don't think I would have ever foreseen this fic going this long when I started it as a small but still neat idea (funny how the small and neat ideas end up overtaking your original ones, no?) way back in February of '07. Next thing you know, I'll end up having over 200,000 words!

Wait a minute… with last chapter I'm at…182,560 words total. Yikes. I could possibly hit that milestone in…say, 4-5 chapters? Ack. I don't envy anyone who's playing catch up now or those of you who have recently done that. You guys deserve a medal or something for having the tenacity for pulling that one off.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XL – Falling In and Out of Place**

-

_There's nothing left to prove,  
There's nothing I won't do,  
There's nothing like the pain,  
I feel for you,  
Nothing left to hide,  
Nothing left to fear,  
I am always here.  
_

_**-Our Lady Peace, Not Enough.**_

-

And there he was; the subject of her scrawls, the one and only Tyler Reid. If it would have provided a suitable distraction and gotten her out of this mess, Rinoa would have purposely fallen in the fountain water by now. Trying to avert her eyes, she ended up settling on Squall's side profile; he had turned around the very instant she sensed Tyler's presence. From what she could see, he didn't look too impressed by their surprise visitor.

'_...Uh oh_.'

Before Rinoa could do anything, even look back, Squall had already gotten up and faced her one-time flame. Tyler had about a little less than half a head on him; the top of Squall's head came up to his eyes. It was almost odd to the still-sitting teenager to see two very different people representing equally-different points in her life stand so close in proximity to each other. Either way, this was her problem, not Squall's. It was up to her to fix it. And so, she finally got up and tugged Squall's arm to make sure he didn't do anything.

The action didn't go unnoticed and Tyler immediately looked her way. "...I know I probably don't deserve this, but could you spare a moment? I wanted to say something to you."

Rinoa lightly bit the inside of her lip. His tone wasn't bitter, sarcastic; it was self-depreciating of all things. Needless to say, it also threw her off completely and because of this, she genuinely considered hearing him out.

"Um...sure, I guess."

'_There goes Rinoa the Doormat once again.' _her mind mocked after Squall tossed a sidelong glance at her.

"Not that this'll change anything but, I'm sorry. I was a major jerk for what I said and did on New Year's Eve." he offered. "I don't think I've ever misread someone that badly before but...I just couldn't admit it then. I said those things after because I was looking for something else to blame other than my stupidity."

Though he meant well by the apology, Rinoa couldn't help but frown. "Do you have any idea of how miserable you made me that night? I couldn't stop thinking about what I must have done to give you that impression. You made me feel cheap. I don't know whether I should be mad at you right now or..."

When Tyler's expression tensed, Rinoa felt a minor tingle course through her body but she couldn't exactly place why. Instead of revelling in it, she continued.

"...or thanking you for giving me that last push to make me realize that I wasn't being myself. I decided to make a change for the better because of that."

The other teenager's facial muscles lost their tenseness. "...You weren't yourself? You could have fooled me. It didn't seem forced in the least bit."

"No, I wasn't, trust me. I'm not that daring or fun." she assured, lightly poking fun at herself at the same time. "I'm sure he-" She pointed at Squall. "-could tell you all about that."

Tyler's funny look finally dissipated when he switched his sights from her to Squall and back to her again. Something seemed to have clicked inside of his head.

"I kept on hearing about this rumour about you and, well, I guess you too." he started to mention, the second '_you'_ directed at Squall. "That's got to be hard. Having people say things, I mean."

Rinoa had to stop herself from blinking hard. Fortunately, she had a very good distraction on hand at the moment. Fake-boyfriend-mode Squall was always good for one of those.

"...Doesn't bother me." Squall shrugged. "Selective hearing helps."

"Hm. That's good." Tyler half-heartedly added before switching his sights on Rinoa. "Well, I...gotta go. Thanks for hearing me out."

After her terse nod, he immediately went off to the main hallway's elevator. Once he was out of an earshot, Rinoa couldn't help but crack a smirk.

"Selective hearing? Nice one, Squall." she laughed, serving as a catalyst for an oh-so predictable eye roll from him.

"...Whatever. It got the job done."

"Can't argue with that." she added. "But to be honest with you, I was shocked at how civil he was towards you and this whole thing in general. I was expecting a lot of yelling or even fistfight to break out."

Out of the blue, he sighed. "...That's because you were being too nice for your own good. You shouldn't have given him that reprieve."

Rinoa furrowed her brows. "Um, I'm confused. Are you saying that my being nice was a bad thing or a good thing?"

"It was a double-edged sword." he clarified. "It got the job done but you shouldn't have forgiven him. Sorry doesn't make up for something like that."

The teenager's smirk vanished when a sigh effectively wiped it off of her face. "There was a point where I was venting at him about how I felt after it all and when I stopped...I just blew it. There was like a weird kind of satisfaction in having the upper hand and it felt wrong. But if he leaves me alone because I accepted his apology, I suppose it'll be worth it in the long run."

Right after those words had left her mouth, it looked as if Squall was about to say something but just as she was expecting his lips to move, he silently stalked off to his class, leaving her all alone. It was awhile before she moved.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Art class passed without anything noteworthy happening save for spotting some really interesting designs on random people's canvases. Rinoa made sure to take the uneventful first period as a brief respite before things would pick up when she'd meet up with Squall again and potentially clash with Nat.

After rushing into class with seconds to spare before the bell would sound, Rinoa quickly glanced at her surroundings and nearly did a double take. There were only two seats available yet, if her memory hadn't failed her, it was the exact same set-up as last week with none of the weekly seating changes she'd come to expect. Looking at the nearby wall for a different seating chart, she found none. The only one tacked on was last week's and Kolp was nowhere in sight so she couldn't ask about it. She vaguely wondered if this meant that there was going to be another sub in. _No_, she reasoned, _that wouldn't stop Kolp from giving the sub a copy of this week's seating plan along with the day's instructions. _

When the bell rang, she began walk to where her seat was last week in the furthest left-hand corner beside Squall. However, just as she was halfway there, Adrienne, who was sitting in another last-row seat in the middle, caught her eye. Instead of facing the proper way, her upper body was twisted her way. While she said nothing outright, she discreetly handed her a piece of paper and near-silently instructed her to read the note once she sat down.

Obviously curious about the note's contents, Rinoa pocketed the paper and hastened her pace so that she was at her seat that much faster. Once she seated herself, she plucked the paper out and unfolded it and started reading it as fast as she could.

-—-

_Nat's been suspended for the rest of the semester. I don't know for what exactly but I have a feeling it has to do when she took your bag the one day. I know that you're not friends with her anymore but I'd thought I'd let you know since it was your knapsack. _

-—-

Rinoa eyes brightened considerably after reading this and nudged Squall. For some reason, it took a couple of tries before he even acknowledged her.

"_...What?_" he grumbled.

"Got some good news for you. Look at this."

After giving him Adrienne's note, he made quick work of it. It wasn't even five seconds later before he commented on it.

"What does that mean for us outside of the obvious?" he asked. Rinoa took a moment to collect her thoughts on the matter.

She gave him an earnest shrug. "I honestly don't know. It could mean anything if you choose to take advantage of the peace and quiet. We could focus more on Lit, maybe?"

"…Sounds reasonable." Just then, he leaned in closer and Rinoa's heart almost stopped. …Then he started to whisper. "…_I don't think we can use this as an excuse to call it off for awhile. We'll have to keep consistent with this._"

Trying her best to hide the rosy blush which had seemingly exploded on her face for an unfounded reason, Rinoa mumbled a feeble '_yes_' while scouring the innards of her knapsack for her books and pencil case for Lit. Kolp still hadn't arrived yet which was an amazing feat in itself, especially when Rinoa had previously been under the impression that the Lit instructor lived at her desk.

After dropping her things onto the desk with a resounding clatter, she turned to face Squall again, confident that the pink on her face had gone away by now.

"Do you think Kolp's running late printing up some horribly last-minute pop quiz designed to torture us?" she semi-joshed.

"She's not here today."

"Oh, so it's a sub?"

He sighed. "…I wish it was."

Rinoa furrowed her brows. "Um…Squall? I don't follow you."

"Have you checked your e-mails recently?"

"No. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Everything." he deadpanned. "According to an e-mail I received from the school, Garden's decided to have the yearly _health_ classes during this period for the next three days."

The raven-haired teenager's ears perked up at his different intonation of the word '_health_' in that sentence.

"You mean _those_ kinds of health classes?"

He awkwardly nodded. "They normally torture us with these in April but, the e-mail stated that due to a few '_incidents,_' Garden thought it was best to do them earlier this year."

Rinoa felt the blush creeping back with a vengeance. "…_You don't think they did that because of us, do you?_" she asked at whisper-level.

"No. They wouldn't react this way for something as trivial as that." he answered. "If anything, it would have to do with the kind of situation your friend is in. There seems to be more in the same situation this year."

After he had finished his sentence, Rinoa felt a pang in her heart, not only for herself but for Squall as well.

"…I see." she lamely commented. "So…do the classes have a lot of visuals or do they just go on to state piles of facts?"

"If it's anything like last year's, if you can eat lunch after, consider it an accomplishment."

"They're that brutal?" He nodded, making Rinoa cringe a little. "That sucks. Too bad I'm not sick anymore or else that would have been a good way to get us out of here."

Unexpectedly, Squall arched a brow at this. "…You shouldn't be joking around about that."

Rinoa blinked. "Um…I wasn't being serious about that. It's just that…well, me being sick's sort of been getting us out of class a lot."

"Hm…we'll have to tell Instructor Reiyn about missing practice tonight."

The bewildered blink came back for an encore. "Uh…did I miss a segway somewhere? You just jumped from me being sick to badminton in zero seconds flat."

He shrugged. "I didn't see the need to make any more comments on that so I didn't."

"…Alright then." she half-heartedly agreed with his logic. "So if we tell him that, will we be automatically cut from the senior mixed team?"

"Unless if we were the only ones, it's likely that we'll be cut." he answered. Whether her mind was playing tricks on her or not, it seemed as if he was hoping that they'd be axed like this.

Either way, just as he finished his sentence a woman with platinum bob came walking in with a stack consisting of what seemed like a massive pile of papers as the base, two binders sandwiched in the middle, additional transparent slides on the top with several markers, an opaque bag with and a banana littered over it. The woman looked like she was in her late twenties or early thirties with a medium build and wore stylishly thick-framed black glasses, a pale blue sweater and cream-coloured long skirt. If Rinoa hadn't known any better, this lady looked like she could have been Instructor Trepe's sister or a relative at the very least.

Regardless, this woman who had walked in had already placed her stack of things on the front desk, greeting them all with a warm smile and hello. This was followed by a brief explanation of her being there, presumably for those, like Rinoa herself, who had not checked their e-mails recently. Once the formalities were all said and done, she wasted no time in getting on with the subject.

"For the next few days, I'll be talking about various sexual health issues such as contraception, pregnancy, transmitted diseases and infections. While these are simply informative classes to help bolster your knowledge of these topics, I encourage you to listen closely and participate whenever you can—" All of a sudden, the lady stopped at the raise of a student's hand. _Squall's_ hand. "_Oh_, do you have a question?"

"…Is this going to be like last year's Grade 12 classes on this?" he asked.

Judging by the teacher's expression, it had caught her off-guard. "Yes…but I'm not sure of the importance of that—"

"—I stayed an extra year." he clarified. "If the lessons are the same as last year's, there's no point of getting the same information twice."

"_Heh_." Rinoa heard Seifer's voice resounded from somewhere on Squall's right. She couldn't pinpoint where at the moment. "Did the subject traumatize too much last year to sit through it again, Leonhart?"

When Squall turned his head, all Rinoa could see was the back of his head. From the lack of any noise, she assumed an eye roll or glare was his response of choice. After whatever he must have done, Seifer continued.

"Relax, it was only a joke." he added. "Besides, I doubt that even _you_ can retain all that information from last year. A refresher won't kill you." He thoughtfully paused to shift his sights onto the blonde teacher upfront. "…Isn't that right Health Instructor lady?"

Picking up on her cue rather quickly, the woman nodded. "Most definitely."

The next thing Rinoa heard was the sound of Squall dully thumping his head against his desk, followed by a few grumbles which oddly sounded like, '_Getting along with a teacher? I must be dreaming this…_'

Rinoa had to suppress all urges to go and say, '_Aw,_' at this. Instead, she lightly patted him on the back. The health class started soon thereafter. As it turned out, Squall hadn't gotten up from his slumped position on his desk throughout the lesson; only the sound of the bell managed to get him up from that position. Rinoa had received her share of looks from the teacher non-verbally trying to get her to nudge him but she hadn't done as mentally instructed. It didn't feel like her place to tell him he had to listen.

Even though they'd only spent the class on the routine contraceptive info, how and where to acquire them, how they worked – the banana was subjected to permanent humiliation in the process – and the respective failure rates, he still hadn't mustered enough energy to pretend to listen to the lady. While Rinoa could have understood this behaviour if the teacher was talking about pregnancy, which was scheduled for tomorrow's health lesson, simple contraceptive info shouldn't have gotten this kind of reaction—

Never mind.

Once everyone was gone and out of the class, Rinoa slowly started to stow her things into her backpack to make sure she was with him when he left. If it was likely that something was up, she didn't want to leave him alone right now.

He got up and she did too. It wasn't long before he took notice of her synchronized efforts.

"…I assume I missed the rehashed info session?"

Rinoa nodded. A little too fast as it seemed; she made herself a little dizzy in the process. "Yeah, even I could have said the same things…well, not that I'd want to but…you know what I mean, right?" she speed-talked. "But I suppose you heard us all laughing when she spent five whole minutes trying to put the condom over the banana properly?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

She smirked. "Hey, you can't blame us for laughing. It was funny. I bet you would have smirked a teensy bit if you were watching her."

"_Right._" he sarcastically agreed. "-because that's _exactly_ the type of thing that would I would smirk at."

"Well, you must find it funny on some level because you've got a teensy smile now."

He tossed her a look. "You're trying too hard Rinoa. I know I'm not smiling now."

"Oh really?" she challenged, "Please enlighten me then. How can you tell when you are?"

"It isn't very hard to detect foreign facial muscles pulling." he countered. "And no, I'm not going to give you a demonstration in case if that's what you were going to ask next."

"Darn." she sighed in mock-defeat. "Can't blame me for trying."

Instead of possibly being rewarded with an elusive smile, she saw him arch his brows. "…Why were you trying to get me to smile? No one's around us."

"Honestly," she started, "-I found it a little odd that you'd slump your head throughout the entire class. I mean, theoretically speaking, that would only give Seifer ammunition and you could have easily looked in her direction and not listen to a word she said instead of drawing so much attention to yourself."

"…That has nothing to do with smiling Rinoa."

"Actually, it does. I just didn't get to my point yet." she explained. "If it bothered you that much to not even try and put up a façade, well, there must be something bothering you about those classes and I just wanted to get whatever that was off of your mind by trying hard to make you do something I knew you wouldn't do."

He tossed her a look. "…I didn't know you were a part-time psychologist."

"I'm not, really. I know that distractions help."

"They don't if you explain what you're trying to achieve with the distractions." he pointed out. "Explaining defeats the purpose."

"Ah, okay. So maybe that was a bad way of going about things." she admitted. "But do you feel better anyway?"

He shrugged. "Can't say. Wondering if you'd gone mad doesn't exactly fall under the category of things that would make me feel better."

"Hey, you're not nice. It's the thought that counts." she said in mock-hurt.

"Yeah, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions." he retorted.

".._._Oh_ whatever._" she dismissed him, intentionally using one of his oft-repeated words. "So, what do you think what's up with Seifer today?"

"...You're changing the subject."

"What? I had nothing else to say on that so I didn't bother." she smartly countered, recycling his words from earlier. He shrugged.

"He likes you. That's why." he said flatly. "If I would have been with anyone else, he would have made a joke concerning the both of us, not just about me."

Rinoa went through a string of various facial expressions before she settled on one — surprised.

"No, no. That doesn't sound right. He just doesn't like you and it bugs him."

Squall tossed her a look. "Hyne...I didn't realize you were that dense. Looking like he's being protective of you as a friend is just a cover. He doesn't like it because it looks like I beat him to the punch."

Still sporting the ever-chic surprised look, Rinoa hung her head in shame. '_I don't know how he managed to make this about me again. Hyne, is he ever crafty._'

'..._Or maybe I'm just as dense as he said._'

'_Seems like no matter how many pieces come together for this, just as many are still out of place. I can't win for losing._'

She finally looked back up at him. "Squall...if it's alright with you, let's just stop talking about this go have lunch? I'm feeling a little light-headed."

He nodded and went to the cafeteria. During the walk, she wobbled a couple of times but managed to hide the anomalies in her gait, the jigsaw puzzle of her life still as jumbled as ever.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Ah, sorry for the 15-day wait. Like I've mentioned before, midterms are evil, so yeah. Hey, come to think of it, I was only at Chapter XIII around this time last year, spooky isn't it? (Halloween pun intended) Either way, a lot of time will be skipped between now and the next chapter. I know it'll start off with a journal entry so don't worry, you guys won't be guessing the date there.

Anyway, hope the fillerish-ness of this chapter was bearable to read,

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbits – **The whole Health class thing was inspired from the sixth chapter from a really funny VIII fic called _Fun and Games _by sapereaude13 (go read it, I guarantee it'll have you in stitches). The line, "…I didn't know you were a part-time psychologist." was a reference to a previous fic of mine (Breaking Free) where Squall thinks that in regards to a nosy teacher.


	42. Chapter XLI – House Warming

**Author's Notes - **Just trying to take advantage of the free time I have now. Hopefully it'll be put to good use. :)

Psst...if there are any typos, they'll be fixed later, I'll explain later.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XLI – House Warming**

-

_It just takes some time little girl,  
You're in the middle of the ride,  
Everything, everything will be just fine,  
Everything, everything will be all right,  
Everything, everything will be all right.  
_

_**-Jimmy Eat World, The Middle.**_

-

_Sunday, February 6__th__ —_

_I guess I've been forgetting to write in this journal for awhile since the last entry I can see in here is dated January 12__th__. Yikes. I have been skimping on this thing big time. Oh well, I can just make up for lost time here. The past few weeks feel like so much yet so little has happened at the same time, I can't explain it, really. Either way, I suppose that the best way of jotting all of this down would be to just go in order here. _

_Ok, so after I found out that Nat was suspended on the 17__th__ (I think that was the 17__th__, the health lessons were roughly around a week and a half before exams if I'm not mistaken), it was like the universe was trying to make up for her absence or something. Even without any Nat-related crap to deal with, different things still managed to pop up at the same time. It didn't surprise me that Squall skipped all of those health classes after the first one (I assume he talked to Cid or something because an attendance sheet was still being sent and he didn't get in trouble). But what did surprise me at the time was the fact it bothered him so much to not show up at all in the first place when he's been acting like the perfect student all the time before that. Like I even told him, the way he was doing things was only drawing people's attention onto him and yet he still did it. _

_I swear I don't know where his head is at sometimes but, I feel like I've pried enough into his life so other than trying my best to distract him from whatever it is, I'm going to keep my nose out of his business. If he wants to tell me, I'll let him do it on his own time. I've come to learn that it's the best way to keep things sane as far as this goes and it's been working so far. Things have slowed down to a natural pace and I'd like to keep it that way. _

_As for Seifer...I really don't know how I let it get to the point where Squall had to spell it out for me after I randomly brought him up as a joke that day. The first few days after were a little awkward as far as me and Seifer went (I don't think he picked up on the change). And as much as I hate to say this, I don't think things will ever be the same no matter how normal they still seem on the outside. Although I know that he's respectful enough to not try and drive a wedge between what Squall and I are pretending to have, ever since Squall pointed it out to me, Seifer's jokes towards Squall have been getting on my nerves. It got to the point where I asked him to stop saying things like that while I was around. But since Squall's been beside me like glue for this thing, I've basically forced him to be nice all the time (he's really made good on his promise) and that's been bothering me too because it feels like he's just not the same. Hopefully I'll figure out a way to balance this someday. _

_Being a mixed partner badminton team with Squall didn't take off because we missed that first practice, but out of sheer luck, the male singles player for the team was axed because of a grades policy the school has (I was told that students have to maintain a certain average to be on any sports team) and Instructor Reiyn decided to ask Squall (thankfully his other classes more than made up for his lower Lit mark) so now he's playing singles. I've watched him play more than a couple of times during his practices and I can safely say that he's simply phenomenal at it. I couldn't believe half of the things I was seeing. What he did on that one day where we were partners against Ivy and Adrienne was only the tip of the iceberg as far as his skills go. It's probably a good thing that we weren't partners. I would have weighed him down a lot._

_The weekly appointments with Kadowaki haven't been all that good. It's gotten to the point where I have to put heavy things in my pockets to make it seem like I'm gaining some weight. I'm not trying to lose weight but, exam time always does that to me because I get so nervous. I've been struggling to maintain my weight right now, never mind gain weight. I'm sure it'll be fine now that they're over and I've got a whole new set of classes to look forward to._

_Oh, speaking of which, with a lot of perseverance and work, Squall passed Lit with decent marks. Compared to the other ones he showed me it's a low grade, only a 72 when his others are in the nineties, but coming from a 49 in the midterm, I think he's just pleased to have passed. I should be thanking him for his help too. Because of him, my History mark went up to an 86 which is awesome for me because it's such a dry and boring subject. I scrapped by with a 62 in Gym (I blame my noodle arms), a cool 90 in Lit and an 82 in Art (would have had an 86 or a 90 but Instructor Illione's out to get me, I swear)._

_This semester should be interesting though. Since I know I can't graduate this year because I'm only considered to be in the twelfth grade credit-wise just now because of my stint at Obel Lake, I'm spreading out my course work so I can do really well in the classes I am taking. I only have two afternoon classes and one of them is the one non-elective Grade Eleven class I missed at my old school. I've got Grade Eleven math and a cooking class. Cooking class should be interesting because I burn everything I touch and I seriously need to learn how to make stuff other than chocolate chip cookies (strangely enough, it's the only thing I don't burn except for water). Adrienne and Ivy are in that class so I'm sure they'll stop me from being a fire hazard. I'm not too crazy about the math thing but I suppose that Squall can help me there if I force him to. Or maybe I can bribe him with cookies. Whichever way works._

_Not surprising in the least, neither Squall nor Seifer are in my classes. Squall's already good to graduate but he's taking two classes they didn't offer last year. I think one of them was like Phys. Ed on steroids or something like that with an advanced weaponry class. Not sure if he actually gets to handle weapons, but I think I remember him saying that the two classes had to be taken in the same semester. Either way, they're both in the afternoon so that's good. I haven't gotten around to asking what Adrienne's schedule was like yet but I know that Ivy's got special arrangements with the two classes she has so she can get her credits faster before she has Ethan and graduate on time, so that's good._

_Ah, I'd better get to bed now. Don't want to oversleep and have Squall loudly knocking at the front door. I have a feeling that it's going to be an awesome day at school tomorrow (no real work guaranteed since it's only the first day and Squall's got a badminton practice) an awesome evening too – Squall's mom invited me over for supper. I think that'll be fun._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

With her alarm buzzing, Rinoa more-or-less found herself slumping out of bed despite getting...10 hours of sleep according to the red LCD numbers currently displayed on her alarm clock. After rubbing her eyes a little, she got up, only to dizzily stumble a little. She got her bearings after a couple seconds of swaying. At least she didn't fall over like some of the other times.

After taking a few steps towards her dresser, she opened the middle drawer and plucked out some black cotton pants, a light blue tank top and a white hooded sweatshirt before opening the top drawer and getting the other things she needed as well. Within a minute or two, she changed into all of this. The only problem being her pants; they were drooping to the point where her underwear was showing and where a simple tug could have them down by her ankles.

Sighing, she went into another drawer to find a suitable belt. When she found one that matched with her clothes, she slipped it on only to find out that the existing holes weren't tight enough to do their job properly and hold up her pants enough. Her underpants were still showing only not as much. Even if they had done its job, Rinoa made an estimated guess that it would look too bunched up at the back to look right anyway. She undid the belt and took off the pants; it looked like she was going to have to find another pair. Never mind that, it also looked like she was also going to have to _buy_ another pair. This had to have been the umpteenth time in the past little while.

Following a full-scale cavity search of the drawer again, she found something suitable for the tank top and sweater she was wearing. The pair of jeans was a little shorter in length when compared to the others she owned, not too far fetched of an idea considering that she hadn't worn this particular pair in years, but they did the job admirably. A belt wasn't necessary either so that was a nice bonus.

She turned around after she'd zipped them up only to see that it was right around the time Squall said he'd be over to pick her up. Quickly picking up her backpack from the foot of her nightstand and her cell and keys from on top of it, Rinoa scurried out of her room, darted down the stairs and made a sharp left turn into the kitchen once she passed the dining room. Finally slowing to a complete stop, she opened up her fridge and looked at what she could eat in a span of couple of minutes.

After a quick scan, she saw the leftover pasta from last night's dinner and decided that it would be the best candidate for the job without even bothering to consider looking at the other things in there. Taking it out and putting it on the nearby counter on its left, she took a second look to see if there was anything good to drink with it. Figuring that eleven o' clock wasn't too early for a much-needed jolt of carbonated caffeine, she grabbed a can of diet cola from the lower shelf and set it beside the container of pasta. That's when she heard the front door.

Immediately closing the fridge door upon hearing his knocks, she walked out of the kitchen and took a curved left into and past the living room and made her way into the entrance way to open the door. She was greeted with a snow-sprinkled Squall.

"Hey, you're a little early. I was just nuking some leftovers for lunch." she greeted. "Come in and warm up for a bit."

With a simple nod, he did as he was told and took off his bag, coat and boots once he was completely inside and Rinoa had closed the door. She took his coat and hung it on the nearby coat rack, careful to not step in the newly-created slush puddles. By the time she turned around after completing her task, he was already sitting on the couch by himself. She had to smirk.

"You know, I didn't give you permission to sit down mister." she joshed. Rinoa was rewarded with a roll of his eyes.

"...You need to find some more jokes. That one's getting old." he dryly remarked.

"Sorry. Couldn't resist saying it like usual. How many times has it been?"

"At last count, eight."

"Hm. Didn't realize you've been keeping track of that."

He shrugged. "...It's easy when it's been seven times too many."

Now Rinoa was the one rolling her eyes. "...Right, and I suppose it has _nothing_ to do with catching you really off-guard the first time."

"Whatever. I'll get up." Just as he was saying it, he was getting up from the couch.

"Haven't you learned anything from the other seven times?" she teased. "I don't actually mean it. You can stay there if you want."

He was standing completely straight now. "Actually... I need to microwave something if it's alright. My mother was monopolizing the kitchen this morning so I didn't get the chance to eat."

"Sure. That's no problem. Just let me cook my stuff first. I didn't have anything for breakfast so I'm a little hungry." she added. "Can I have whatever it is you brought? I can put it on a plate or bowl for you so it'll cook better."

After walking back over to his knapsack, he pulled out a saran-wrapped miniature stack of pizza from one of the zipped compartments and gave it to her. She guessed that there must have been four or five pieces.

"Energy for the '_gym on steroids'_ class?" she teased with the mandatory bunny-ear quotations.

He shrugged. "It's all I could grab on short notice. Didn't check how many were in there."

"Let's see then." She looked down to count the layers through the cellophane. "You've got...five here."

"Alright."

The pair moved towards the kitchen after the_ extensive analysis_ and Rinoa quickly tossed her container of pasta into the microwave in the far right-hand corner of the room and set it to two minutes on high. As the microwave began emitting a faint buzzing noise while it was working, she unravelled the cellophane and opened the nearby cabinet door to get a big enough plate and put three of the five pieces on it, covering the remaining two with the wrap again. She turned around after.

"I'm only putting three on at first so there won't be any cold spots, okay?" When he indifferently shrugged, she continued. "If you didn't bring anything to drink because you were in a rush, you can have whatever I've got in the fridge. Which is..." She slid over to the fridge and opened it to go see. "...orange juice, apple juice, grape, some diet cola cans, milk-"

"-It's fine Rinoa." he said, interrupting her list. "I did bring something."

Rinoa got her head out of the fridge and closed it. "Okay then."

The microwave's warm buzzing resumed being the only thing filling the void as Rinoa awkwardly shifted her feet around as she waited for her food to warm. On the other hand, Squall was standing there quietly by the kitchen's entranceway, not saying a word either.

After another half a minute of this, Rinoa couldn't take any more of the silence and had to attempt skewering it.

"So...um, what's your advanced weapons class supposed to be like? Do you finally get to handle weapons or is it just more advanced theory?"

"Theory." he softly answered. "_Rinoa..."_

The raven-haired teenager didn't like the abrupt change in his timbre. ".._.Yeah?_"

"I'm sorry. For everything."

Rinoa's throat felt a little constricted. "It's okay Squall. You're not the only one who feels like they need to say I'm sorry."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Sorry if there's a lot of typos, I just wanted this out on Halloween because of the evil cliffy I've left for you guys. Just keep in mind that a few weeks have passed and don't be quick to assume exactly what happened. I could be throwing you guys through a loop for nothing or not. You'll have to tune in next time to find out. Muahahaha!

_-Emerald-Latias _


	43. Chapter XLII – Blackout, Blood and Bliss

**Author's Notes – **Glad you guys are annoyed with my cliffhanger ending because that means I'm doing my job right for once. Hehe. Don't worry though; it'll get answered in this chapter. I was only being temporarily evil for Halloween. Anyways, I'd better get on this thing while I still have some spare time to kill.

Just to warn you in advance, this goes into the past and only spans what happened that caused them to say sorry to each other. I'm not expecting this to be long by any means. But despite the length I expect it to be, there's a point here so it won't be a filler chapter. Cheers.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XLII – Blackout, Blood and Bliss**

_-_

_Memories are just where you laid them,  
Drag the waters till the depths give up their dead,  
What did you expect to find,  
Was there something you left behind?_

_**-Fuel, Hemorrhage (In My Hands).**_

_-_

It was the only thing she'd neglected to write in last night's catch-up journal entry. Sure, there were other things she hadn't mentioned in there like how she had to put heavy things in her pants for the last monthly trip to Dr. Marnelle's too or that Ivy's baby bump had finally grown enough for her to buy her first pair of maternity pants but those things were unintentionally omitted.

This was the only thing she had _purposely_ omitted.

It happened on the second-last day of exams, last Tuesday on the 1st, the day before they both had their History exam. Because that day was devoted to third period exams and their Phys. Ed class's exam of sorts was a physical test the week before, they used the free time to study History together at her house after an impromptu call on Rinoa's end. She'd originally called to ask a simple question about one of the earlier sections covered before she'd arrived at school and never fully understood. What she thought was a simple question became too complex to answer over the phone so he offered to come over if she really had trouble studying the section. Knowing how well he was at teaching history from that one day, she jumped at the chance seeing as no one else was home at the moment. Since both of her parents were at work, she figured it would be no problem. After all, what they didn't know they couldn't make assumptions about.

He came over about twenty minutes later by foot with all of his history things and began helping her with the section. All was going well until they took a short break hours later when it was close to lunch time. Because it was a little chilly inside of the house, Rinoa offered to make some hot chocolate for the both of them, something which he had surprisingly agreed to. After boiling the water in the kettle, she poured it into the two mugs and stirred in the mix she had on hand. Once everything was done, she picked up the two mugs' handles and turned away from the counter to go and bring them over to the table. The one thing she didn't account for was the fact that he happened to be directly behind her at the time.

The chocolaty contents of both mugs spilled all over the both of them and because it was made so recently, the hot chocolate's temperature was absurdly scalding. _Oh how Rinoa had remembered that part well._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_As the mugs came tumbling down to the floor, they splintered into numerous shards upon impact by both of their feet. Rinoa, however, wasn't preoccupied with that at the moment, it was the searing heat from the spilled hot chocolate on her thin long-sleeve shirt which was earning her undivided attention as she was frantically trying to lift it away from her skin._

_It was to no avail as the shirt was acting like an oversaturated sponge, the action of pulling it away from her forcing the excess to drip onto her bare stomach, intensely burning her with every drop. She wasted no time to rid herself from this immense discomfort and hastily threw off the soaked shirt. _

_The relief was only temporary because when she moved her foot, she unwittingly stepped into a mixture of a hot chocolate and smaller mug shards, slipping when she recoiled. It didn't help that one of her legs hit Squall's, forcing him to stumble and eventually fall as well. She wasn't quite sure if her head hit one of the bottom cupboards, but if she had, it explained why the next thing she remembered was lying on her side on the couch. Her face was facing the back cushions and her shirt and socks must have gone AWOL because she couldn't feel either articles of clothing. She felt cold but a gentle pressing sensation warmed spots of her back up. Her mind fuzzily deduced that it was Squall. She would have turned around to confirm her suspicions but his voice did that for her already._

"_Don't move." he said. "I'm wiping up the blood from your cuts before I disinfect and bandage them. You did a good number on your back when you fell. I've already bandaged the few cuts you had on your feet." _

"_Oh...thanks." she groggily replied to the pillow she was facing, feeling incredibly cold and warm at the same time somehow. Right then, she writhed as she felt him use some rubbing alcohol and apply bandages to some places. "So... are you...okay?"_

"_...Yeah, I'm fine." he answered while he got back to wiping away what must have been blood with paper towel again. "I landed sideways so I missed most of the hot chocolate and mug shards."_

"_That's good-ow." She immediately felt the pressing stop. Squall must have recoiled at her 'ow.' "Ow. Ow. Why does everything past my hips hurt?"_

_Insert awkward pause. _

"_...I didn't get to finish earlier. The reason I missed most of the shards because half of my body fell on yours. ...That's probably why you're sore there."_

_Ah. _

"_Oh so...aah...that's why I have all of these...ow...nastier cuts in my back?"_

"_More or less. The fact that you have next to no body fat doesn't help either."_

_Rinoa shifted a little. The reality of this whole situation just came crashing down in her head. She was only in a bra and pants in Squall's presence so of course he would be able to see that she wasn't as normal as her thicker sweaters would have led him and everyone else to believe. She tried to quietly wait it out in hopes that it was a simple statement to be taken at face value without any, '...and I'm worried about that' connotation stringed with it. _

_That plan didn't go as well as she thought it would have when something got in her way. Literally._

"_Ow. Ow.__** Ow!**__" she yelped. "Stop whatever it is you're doing Squall, it hurts!"_

"_I'm not doing anything." he claimed. "...Where is it hurting?"_

_When she shifted again, it hurt some more. Luckily, if she could even say that much, it helped her pinpoint where this pain was coming from. "Right below my- __**aah**__- shoulder blades."_

_It was another moment before she felt his fingertips on her back, investigating the problem. She shifted when she felt a strange sort of tugging. _

_...Wait a minute. _

"_-What are you doing with my –__**Ow-aah**__—bra?"_

"_You've got a longer cut around there that I didn't notice before. Your...thing was in the way so I can't bandage it unless if I pull on it."_

_At this moment, Rinoa was thankful that he couldn't see her face burning red. "...Okay, so can you bandage it now?"_

"_No. You aggravated it more when you moved. I can't bandage it properly until the bleeding's stopped."_

"_It's fine then." she dismissed. "You don't have to do anything, really. I'll just go upstairs to wash this all up and change."_

_When she slowly tried to get up from her sideways position, she felt him stop her from doing so by gently gripping her shoulder._

"_Stay there." he instructed. "I don't have an idea of the extent of your injuries so I don't think it would be a good idea to get up just yet. You might not make it upstairs."_

"_...Alright." Under his warm touch, she heeded his advice and slowly relaxed herself back down. In her semi-foggy state, his advice did sound reasonable, although it was a little on the unnecessarily-precautious side. "Just out of curiosity...how bad is the bleeding overall? Not just the one near my bra."_

"_...Bad enough to wonder why you haven't stained your couch yet. All of your moving made most of the cuts reopen and I'll have to re-bandage some things."_

"_Oh. Sorry. I'll try to stay still."_

_Right after, she heard him abruptly get up. "I'll...be back. Need to get some more things."_

"_...Okay."_

_After she heard his footsteps echo away, Rinoa moved her left arm a little to see her watch, hoping that she hadn't blacked out for too long. The history exam was still going to be tomorrow afternoon regardless of what happened today and even though she put a very big dent into the course material, she still needed to study the later chapters and she had no idea of how far Squall was into his studying. She didn't want to inconvenience him any more than she already had. When the watch showed that it was only twelve-thirty, she exhaled with a sigh of relief. _

_Now if only she could change into a nice sweater and get out of this messy position. _

_When he was taking a little longer than she expected, Rinoa slowly got up in fear of staining the couch; she'd felt something trickle down her back a little. When she was on her feet and away from the couch, she felt perfectly fine albeit the obvious soreness of her limbs and her stinging feet and back. Moving a hand to roam around the lower portion of the latter body part, she felt the sticky crimson substance collect underneath her fingers though it wasn't as bad as he made it seem. The blood was drying on her palm and fingers almost nigh-instantaneously. This left more than one question in her head. Had he been overreacting because of his part in the mess or was she hovering over the more-healed portion of her wounds?_

_She moved her hand higher, flinching all along the way as she hit bandaged and bloody patches alike until she hit the middle of her bra's band, where the hidden cut was according to what Squall had mentioned earlier. She had to slip her hand away from there immediately. She'd felt more blood running down her hand, more than she cared to mention. When she brought her hand in front of her face, she immediately felt woozy after witnessing how vibrantly the red was glistening on it. _

_Almost as if the power of suggestion was enough, her back seemed to exponentially hurt more as time ticked on. Slowly walking back to the couch, she carefully sat herself down and bent over to retrieve one of the less blood-stained paper towels littered around the floor near the couch to keep from staining cushions in the interim._

_When she finally heard some noises coming from stairway, she craned her neck and sights in that direction to see Squall with some more anti-septic, another box of tissues and handful of bandages. She mentally fought tooth and nail to keep her face from burning anymore than it already was. Somehow, among all the hubbub of the situation, she hadn't even considered the possibility that the hot chocolate spilling on him might have forced him to do the same thing she had done earlier since he'd been wearing a similar kind of thin shirt. _

_But whatever had happened, he sure as hell wasn't wearing it now. Despite the fact that she was currently holding a bloody paper towel in her hand, she reflexively covered her chest with her arms._

"_...Did you try getting up?" he sternly asked when he was within two footsteps in front of her, setting down his supplies. _

_She guiltily nodded. "I did because I thought I was about to stain the couch but...not for long. The blood near that cut you were talking about freaked me out so I sat back down. I've...been feeling dizzier and...I don't want to get up now."_

"_It's probably nerves, but I don't think it would be wise to chance that assumption in case if you've lost enough blood. ...You'll need to lie down on your stomach so I can clean and bandage everything up properly." _

_Without hesitation, she nodded and did exactly as he said; making sure that her one blood-stained hand was comfortably hanging over the cushions to make sure she didn't leave blood anywhere. He went to work almost immediately. In midst of the pain of the stinging anti-septic and secretly-pleasing sensation of his touch whenever he lightly pressed on her back with a tissue or a bandage, Rinoa grew increasingly warmer whether she wanted to or not. If it was because she was getting an infection or something else she didn't know. But what she did know was that she wanted it to be an infection. An infection would make all of this so much simpler._

_A little later on, she felt his hands go higher, most likely to get closer to that long cut near her bra, she felt a fair deal of struggling and hesitation._

"_Is there...something wrong?" she timidly asked._

"_A little." he honestly answered. "I've...got most of it but...the cut up there...I can't get to it properly without the band either aggravating the bleeding or getting in my way." _

"_If it's getting in the way...undo the clasp." _

_She instantly froze the very second the words left her mouth. If there ever was a case where her brain failed to filter her mouth's actions in time, this would set the bar high for all time. She immediately started to blame the blood loss for that oh-so smooth answer. _

_A few seconds later, he made no effort to hide his reservations when she heard a very loud sigh. "......Make sure I don't see anything, alright? I can't tell if you're thinking straight."_

_Figuring it was of no use to retract her words because she could play the temporary insanity card he'd given her, she wormed her right hand underneath her torso to the other side and securely cradled her the left cup of her bra so her entire arm could keep it all in place and covered for whenever he would unhook the back band. She moved her head to face him and gave him a terse nod before looking back._

_She winced a little when he finally summoned the courage to get his hands there half a minute later. It was hard not to look further into things when he managed to undo it in one fluid motion though. All of the other boys she'd been with had major trouble with getting the clasp to unlock. Either way, once it was undone, she kept her hand firmly against the front and hoped that he would be quick as a strange tingling sensation started to pool underneath her belly button. It took all she had not to flinch during the entire time she felt him wipe away the blood from the cut, dab on some anti-septic solution, bandage it and fumble to clasp the back together again until she heard the small click. _

_With all of the other cuts he'd spent a heck of a lot more time, but it was understandable in this case. She slowly got up from the stomach-first position on the couch only to feel like there was some blood trickling from underneath the large square band-aid and—_

_Out of nowhere, she had to quickly cup both sides of the front — the back had undone by itself. Soon after, her eyes felt like they'd never go back from being anything other than extremely wide open. When it seemed like she was hotter than the sun at that moment, she didn't care if she fell over, she had to get away from him and fix this. This was getting too weird and she was making a fool out of herself. She was beyond mortified; she needed to have a sweater on __**as soon as possible.**_

_She got up faster than he could say 'whatever' and both she even knew it; she'd already scrambled up the stairs and into her room, barricading herself behind the door. She didn't care if she was smearing blood all over it with her back or that it was starting to sting; she just needed to know that there was a physical barrier between herself and everything else which included him. Of course, this was nothing personal against Squall; it was just the principal of the idea. _

_This all happened because she was weak and clumsy and all she did was make things awkward which was not what she wanted at all. She didn't have any control in this situation; she had to be taken care of. He probably thought she was a stupid little girl like he used to think she was._

_After awhile, she slowly got up and saw that there wasn't any blood smeared on the door. This puzzled her. She could have sworn that it was trickling down her back before she'd even bolted out of his sight. She took her hand to her back and felt the surrounding area near her shoulder blades and only felt the ridges of the bandages and the small patches of already-dried blood. _

_...Maybe she was the one who was overreacting? _

_Just maybe._

_She tossed the stained bra into her hamper and quickly fished out a new one from her underwear drawer along with the first sweater she saw in the drawer below. Her pants were all blotched with hot chocolate and blood stains so she swapped those too and clad her feet with some freshly-laundered socks._

_As she threw her pants in the hamper, she finally came to a conclusion. She __**had**__ overreacted. Badly. But before she could do anything to set things right again, another wave of dizziness fell over her and she had to sit herself down on her computer chair to stop the world from spinning. It took several minutes for her to feel secure enough of her ability to walk before she got up._

_She went out of her room and carefully made her way down the stairs. She didn't see Squall anywhere in the living room or dining room so she poked her head into the kitchen. She found him picking up pieces of porcelain. From where he was picking up the pieces from on the ceramic floor, there was a huge spot of dried hot chocolate now coloured a shade of dark brown with specks of crimson. She grimaced._

"_You don't have to do that." she told him to his still de-shirted back. This caught his attention and he stopped to look at her. "I can do that a little later."_

"_It's fine, I can do this by myself." he countered, but when she gave him a look, he changed his tune...slightly. "...Fine. I'll pick up the shards first and you mop later."_

"_Okay. I'll get the stuff for that then." _

_And with that, she slowly went upstairs and into the hallway closet where they kept all of their cleaning products, pails, mops, vacuums and such. When she had what she needed, she carefully walked down the stairs and back into the kitchen where Squall was picking up the last of the mug pieces by now. She rested the mop against the counter and put the rest of the things on the floor. Once her hands were free, she tilted the tap's lever all the way to the left and ran it so that the water would be hot when she would put the pail in a little later with the cleaning solution._

_While the water was warming up as it cascaded into the sink's drain, she looked back as Squall was putting the last of the shards into the garbage. He caught her gaze and she felt a small pang. He had some red blotches on his stomach where the hot chocolate must have soaked through his shirt earlier._

"_Where's your shirt?" she quietly asked, "I can put that in the washer and dryer and have it cleaned in about an hour." _

_He shook his head. "...There's no point. I don't think it'll do any good unless if you pre-soak it for a good couple of hours at the very least. Even then, I'm not sure if the stains will all come out."_

"_...Oh." Feeling the heat rise up behind her, she absent-mindedly stopped the tap. "Sorry for ruining your shirt. I'll get you a plain one from my drawer after I clean this up."_

"_It was an accident, don't worry about it." he dismissed before handing her the pail and solution from the floor. She quietly accepted both and squirted some solution in the pail before putting it underneath the tap and running the now-hot water. _

_She couldn't maintain eye-contact, opting to watch the steaming water quickly fill the pail. "...Do you need anything for those red blotches on your stomach?" she asked the tap before shutting it off._

"_...It's fine, I'll live." He moved the tap's long head to the side and picked up the bucket full of hot suds to put it on the floor before she even had the chance to. When she gave him an annoyed look after he set it down, he gave her an unapologetic one in return. "Don't give me that look. You know why I didn't want you to bring that bucket down." _

_She took the mop in hand, dipped inside of bucket and started wiping up the mess. "I'm fine now Squall. You don't have to treat me like a porcelain doll."_

_He stayed silent until she started to lose her footing for reasons visibly unrelated to the wet spots left by her mopping. When that happened, he took the mop from her and continued what she started, going at a rate three times faster than when she was going at previously. _

"_Go sit down before you fall over." he sternly told her. Rinoa wouldn't have that as an answer though and she tried taking the mop from him to no avail. This didn't go over too well. "Rinoa, I'm not joking around. Go sit down before I carry you to the couch myself." _

_She arched her brows, crossed her arms and firmly planted her feet down. "You're overreacting. I'm fine. I just slid a little because I hit a patch of mop water."_

_He happened to have finished up by the time she said those words. "I find that hard to believe when you're obviously lying about stepping in water or since you look like you haven't eaten anything decent in months."_

"_You __**know**__ I've been really sick Squall. I can't help the fact that I couldn't stomach anything then and exams don't exactly help either." she defensively countered. "Don't you dare accuse me of something like that."_

"_...I said months, not month." he pointed out. "I wouldn't think anything of it if you were a little on the thin side, given what's happened. You're hiding something else."_

_Rinoa narrowed her eyes further. "...What gives you the right to ask about something like that? I respect your privacy. I think you should respect mine. Besides, since when do you care what I do? And don't use the 'I want to make sure you fill your end of the bargain' excuse because, we've already tied up all the ends of the agreement already and I can't see how anything you can pull from this could possibly affect the Nat situation." _

"_Listen, we've spent nearly every day together in the past month for more hours than I can remember and I never picked up on how thin you were at any point - that alone is leading me to believe that you've been carefully covering this up because you damn-well know it would alarm anyone who noticed."_

"_Nice reasoning, but you still didn't answer why you care, Squall." she mildly spat. When this stopped him dead in his tracks verbally, she figured that she'd won this battle and grabbed the mop from where he left it leaning against the counter. Despite this, her assumptions happened to be faulty since she was the one who was stopped dead in her tracks a few seconds later. The mop was never put away properly like she'd planned on doing. _

"_...I care because I don't want someone else wasting their life away in front of me."_

_She turned around, setting the mop into the bucket with the handle leaning against the counter near the sink._

"_...I thought you didn't want the 'saviour' complex."_

"_This is different. You were making me out to be something more than I was back then."_

_Rinoa frowned. "Fine, maybe it wasn't the same. But there's a difference between genuinely caring and just pretending to care because you simply don't want to be reminded of something you're trying to forget."_

"_You're pretty good at using stupid arguments." he bitterly spat. "Are you always this obstinate when someone hits the wrong button or is it because you think __**that **__little of yourself?"_

_She raised a brow. "...What in Hyne's name are you talking about?"_

_He sighed. "That one day where you had to sit on my lap and you ended up telling me about that guy...when I came to the same conclusion you had when you said that I was the person who you could relate to the most at the time, it made me realize something else over the past while." When he paused, she nearly had a heart attack. Then he looked down and said it. "You're... probably the closest thing to a friend I've ever had."_

_Then he looked up again and locked eyes with her. "...You've never considered that possibility, have you?"_

_She frowned and shook her head. She hadn't even thought of that, she really hadn't. This was all so confusing._

"_So you...really do care?" she timidly asked._

_He looked a little uncomfortable but he nodded anyway. "As hard as it may be to believe, I...do."_

_It was at that moment where something snapped inside of her. She had to get out of the kitchen. She didn't feel so hot right now._

_Less than a minute later and she found herself cradling her legs up against the bathtub's edge in the upstairs bathroom. While she didn't feel well, she wasn't sure if it was bad enough to throw up over this so she stayed here as a precaution. At least she had a large supply of tissues at her fingertips in either case. _

_Her back and feet stung like hell and she felt like a lightheaded and dizzy mess. All she could do was cry. It would be only a matter of time before he would come up here and see if she was okay and then she'd have to spill everything because it was so fucking obvious that there was something up. She'd no longer be a mystery. She'd have next to nothing of a private side to her as far as he was concerned._

_But...why was the notion just as alluring as it was repulsive?_

_Hyne, she had no idea. Not a freakin' clue. Not like he gave her any chance to reflect on that one anyway. She already heard him knocking at the door. Her time was up._

_With a soft sigh, she said, "...Come in."_

_The door opened slowly and a good half a minute had passed before he'd stepped through. She looked up at him with what must have been reddened, and possibly puffy, eyes. _

"_...My poker face really sucks, doesn't it?" she tried to josh, her tone coming out very mouse-like and inconsistent. He didn't say anything, just sat down across from her and nudged the door shut. She felt the need to continue at this point so she did. "Before I say anything I...have to tell you that I'm really sorry for what I did to you a few weeks ago. I have been for the longest time but today... it made me realize how much of an inconsiderate person I must have been to make you feel like you had no choice but to tell. Not that I'm comparing situations but...you can see where I'm going with this, right?"_

"_...You were a being a pain in the ass that day but, maybe it was...better it happened that way. I...probably would have imploded if you hadn't done that."_

_After hearing his words, Rinoa couldn't help but form the beginnings of a bittersweet smile on her lips. "...I'm glad I did more good than harm. I was worried I'd done the opposite for awhile there." she said. A small sigh escaped her. "I'm...I'm a recovering anorexia patient. I just look thinner right now because can't handle stress very well so...that's why I've been losing a lot of weight lately. I'm not doing it on purpose, I swear. I promise that I'll be back to normal once this exam is done and over with."_

_When she saw him nod in understanding, she felt awash with that weird tingling sensation again. He hadn't judged her in the least, like when the whole unexpected pregnancy issue unexpectedly popped up a month prior, only this time around, she was doing things on her own terms, despite how the situation might have made it look otherwise. If she had truly wanted to, she could have denied him this information, but she decided not to. She'd decided to let him in. And it felt like was the right decision. Whether it was simply woman's intuition or not...she could just feel it. _

"_That boy I'd told you about a while back, the one who was a year older than me...he was my first and... silly, naive sixteen-year old me thought he loved me but...I just ended up being burned when I found out that he only cared for me and nothing more. I broke it off and...felt so very worthless for the longest time." _

_She took a small steadying breath. "When I finally decided to do something about it, I bought a dress a size lower and thought it would be great motivation to get a little more in shape and feel good about myself for a change. But...I got carried away because of all the positive attention I was getting at the time. Once it got to the point where I was getting too thin...I more or less convinced myself that negative attention I got afterwards was because people were jealous. The dieting...it consumed my life until my parents had enough of it and put me in an eating disorder facility. I was there for eight months because I was being such a brat and I couldn't see what the point of it all was. It...wasn't until I..." Rinoa looked away for a moment. "...It wasn't until I almost died last July when I started to take what everyone was saying seriously."_

_She looked back up with a brave, yet melancholy look on her face. "I hope this makes us even Squall...I don't have anything else to tell you unless if you want to know how incredibly stupid I was at a Halloween party."_

"_It's fine Rinoa." he softly replied. "...Everyone makes mistakes but...I had honestly no idea you've been through all of that."_

_The raven-haired teenager offered him a demure smile. "I know. It's...not something I'm very proud of, but...I'll get over it some day."_

_After he nodded in agreement, Squall got up from his sitting position on the floor and offered a hand for her to get up. After she accepted it and got up, something inside of her felt so...wrong but at the same time, she wasn't quite sure and definitely couldn't begin to explain it. _

_Then, before she could even stop herself, as he was starting to walk out of the bathroom, she tentatively, not to mention crudely, pulled him closer to her by pulling him by the belt he had on. When she had him close enough, she sidestepped around him, looping her arms around his waist into a tight hug with her head firmly nested between his neck and shoulder. By this time, she reckoned that she must have been making the side of his bare chest wet with the tears drops already falling from the corners of her eyes. _

"_I...I don't think I could ever thank you enough." she whispered. "I never would have thought that I'd be happy having all of my secrets unravelled like this."_

_After she said this, Rinoa felt him move backwards. Figuring that he wanted out of the embrace, she let him go._

"_You're terrible at reading cues Squall." she joked in midst of her sobering tears. "But it's okay. I respect the fact that you don't want to be hugged." _

_He stood there for a couple of seconds, shyly reciprocating her eye contact before he said anything._

"_Having your secrets unravelled isn't what makes anyone happy Rinoa." he quietly said. "If I was anyone else, you would have been mortified. You were like that with me when your father unravelled the fact that you were pregnant at one point, before you knew that I wasn't going think of you as any different."_

"_Okay...so if it's not that, what is it Squall?"_

"_I'm...not sure Rinoa."_

"_Could it be a 'screwed-up misfit' thing?"_

"_...Yeah. Probably." He looked away before walking to the edge of the stairs and sitting himself down on the top stair. Not knowing what fuelled this random action, Rinoa walked over to the ledge as well and sat down beside him. When she had seated herself, he looked her way. _

"_...How much do you have left to study?"_

"_Not much." she answered truthfully. "I had most of it done before I called you. I just need to review the last chapter and I think I'm good."_

"_...Do you think you're still alright for those chapters after blacking out?"_

_She nodded. "Yeah, I remember that Lunar Cry is all about monsters raining down from the moon and ruining civilizations in the process and that Seifer can't spell Quezacotl for the life of him so...I think I'm good. I may have forgotten what math is though. By any chance would you be able tell me what all of those squiggly lines do again?"_

_He smirked a little and Rinoa couldn't believe her eyes. Squall Leonhart actually smirked, even if it was for a teensy second. For some reason, this seemed to have acted like a spark within her because whatever it was that felt wrong inside of her now felt so right and before she knew it, she was kissing him on the lips with her right hand rested on his own and...the tingling sensation...it was magnifying tenfold, she couldn't deny the feeling anymore. It was a while before she had the willpower to pull away. Her eyes were closed during the entire time and she kept them closed for a lingering second afterwards. Part of her was afraid that this had probably earned her a ton of crap but, at the same time, part of her knew that it wouldn't happen. He hadn't cut her off or pulled away of his own volition. He had continued._

_When she opened her eyes she saw that he immediately looked away from her, visibly having qualms with quietly breathing, his breath hitching everywhere, it was rather disconcerting. It looked as if he was going to have a panic attack. When he finally had the courage to look her in the eye again, she could see that all of the grey usually present in his bluish-grey eyes was notably absent. All she could see was pure cerulean._

"_...Where did that...come from?" he softly asked. She shrugged. _

"_I...I...honestly have no idea."_

_His response to this had her back against the wall. ...Quite literally._

_...He had continued where she had left off as he leaned in to resume the kissing. Because of her awkward positioning, she had to adjust the way she sat and that lead to softly putting her back against the wall for support. He closely followed her move backward to continue this. It was like her dream but a thousand times better. He was taking things slowly and being as unaggressive as could be, going about this as sweetly and chaste as humanly possible and she didn't feel ashamed to explore a little. _

_Then she heard the door open and all of it was cut brutally short. Rinoa had totally forgotten about the lunch date she'd set with her mother. But on the other hand, she was pretty sure that her mom had forgotten about it too the instant she spotted her on the top of the stairs, making out with her half-dressed boyfr...Squall. _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Opening her eyes again, she looked at him with a pained expression on her face. It had been a few days' time since she'd talked to him and gotten that awkward talk with her mother but it still stung just as much as it did then. On that day, her mother had seen the bloodied tissues and stains on the ivory couch the both of them seemed to have missed. The fact that anti-septic and boxes of band-aid weren't immediately visible from a standing viewpoint didn't help her any.

When the microwave finally beeped to tell her that the food was finished heating, she sighed, ignoring it completely.

"...She knows I'm not a virgin anymore but I think it's safe to say she thinks that that status had only changed a couple of days ago. She saw some blood stains on the couch and the napkins on the floor. I don't think the actual explanation convinced her otherwise since I...couldn't bring myself to lifting up my shirt."

"...What about your father?"

"I don't know, he's been working a lot lately, but he probably thinks I'm a little whore now or something. He knows more about all of the stuff I've done than my mom. I think he just chooses not to tell her. As far has he's concerned, I'm like the biggest disappointment ever."

He grimaced a little. "....Sorry to hear that."

"It's fine Squall. If I wasn't such a space case I would have remembered about that lunch date I set with my mom. Everything's my fault anyway."

"...You seem to be forgetting that I was the one who initiated what your mother ended up seeing. I...have no idea what came over me."

"I'm a bad influence on you, remember?" she tried to kid, her faltering voice ruining the effect entirely.

"You should know by now that I'm not someone who can really be influenced, Rinoa."

Her breath started to hitch. "Have...things changed...between us?"

He quietly nodded. "I'm afraid so."

She frowned. "Did I ruin everything...with what I did?"

"No. This...was probably coming for a long time."

She looked away. "Yeah, I suppose my poker face really does suck."

"Not really. I..." he argued, "...had no idea."

She locked eyes with him. "You had no idea? But then why did you say that—"

Then it hit her like a ton of bricks.

"You..._like_ me?" she stammered.

His gaze turned awkward almost instantly. "Things...change Rinoa."

"I...I don't know what to say...part of me has wanted this for a while but...the other part of me, it knows that if I went ahead with this, I'd only end up hurting you and I don't want to ever hurt you after all you've been through. I actually convinced myself that I only liked the physical feeling of you kissing me so I wouldn't try to take things further."

"So...what made you do what you did last week then?" he asked, "You obviously knew that kissing me would have only led to one of two outcomes."

"...I didn't know why I did what I did then but... I think it's because I realized that would never meet anyone else who truly understands me like you do. ...We compliment each other as much as our qualities and life experiences overlap. But at the same time..." She paused for a moment, taking a sharp breath. "...I don't want to insult Iris's memory. I know that she and your daughter were very important to you and...from what everyone's said about her and the pictures I saw of her in the yearbook...I know I can't even hold a candle to her. It wouldn't be right if you had to stoop so low after what you had."

He frowned. "You're right, I'm not going to ever forget about her or Alexandra but...I'm not trying to replace her, I'm...trying to move on. Ever since I saw Nat explode in detention, I realized that I didn't want to end up like that so I...started accepting some of the things I had been previously denying." He stopped for a second to sigh. "If I wanted to replace her, I would have found someone more like her. I've told you this before but, you two are nothing alike so don't try to compare."

"So...Alexandra's your daughter's name?"

He demurely nodded. "I...had no idea what Iris had planned on naming her so I...picked the name of the main character from her favourite book."

She softly smiled at this. "It's a pretty name."

"_...Thank you_." he shyly accepted, averting his gaze altogether. "...You should know that you're important too Rinoa. I don't think... too many people would have bothered to endure my bullshit to be able to save me from myself."

"...Now I think you're the one giving_ me_ a saviour complex, Squall." she softly disagreed. "I'm nothing special."

When he looked back up at her, she trembled a little. "Don't...say that."

"...Alright, I won't." Rinoa paused for a moment. "So...I guess this going to happen no matter what I say or do to try to convince you otherwise?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. You'll have to tell me."

She thought about it for a good moment before making her decision, weighing the pros and cons in her head until that little voice wedged between reason and logic finally drowned everything out. She took two steps forward and looked straight into those bluish-grey eyes of his and gave him a sincere smile before hugging him tightly. When she felt his arms wrap around her in return, her knees nearly buckled.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments - **Yeah, I _so_ underestimated the word count that one horribly. But, I hope you like it. I spent three whole days on it non-stop.

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbits – **Not gonna lie about this chapter here. I honestly didn't know what the cliffhanger was going to allude to when I wrote it on Halloween. I only had a vague idea that it was going to change Squall and Rinoa's relationship with each other. I was going by the seat of my pants for this one and I had to entirely rewrite the stairs scene like two times for it to feel right (so there are two other versions before this one). Oh and yeah, I literally played Lifehouse's Somewhere In Between (the song from Chapter XXXVIII) 100 times while I was writing this. Crazy, I know.


	44. Chapter XLIII – Loose Ends

**Author's Notes – **Aw, I'm so happy that you guys liked the last chapter. I'm not going to lie, I pretty well juxtaposed a lot of things in my original plans for that to happen, but as I was writing the chapter, it felt so natural that it couldn't be wrong, you know? Then again, I do that a lot in general so I suppose it's nothing big. '_Whatever works,_' should probably be my mantra. Haha.

In any case, I think I have something really cool to celebrate – As of this chapter, I'm past 200,000 words! Isn't that so cool? I think I seriously have to check where this fic stands in terms of word count in all of the VIII section. Hm. I think I will. Lets see...as of 05/11/08, this fic is the 23rd longest overall and 14th longest in terms of in-progress works not counting this chapter (which'll bump me up a few places). Not to mention, I'm averaging 4,614 words with each update with Chapter X being the longest with 8,824 words (the last chapter was the second longest at 8,350 words).

Yikes. I'm freaking myself out here.

_Psst...new poll...check it out..._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XLIII – Loose Ends**

_-_

_There's a life inside me that I can feel again,  
It's the only thing that takes me where I never been,  
I don't care if I've lost everything I have known,  
It don't matter where I lay my head tonight,  
Your arms feel like home.  
_

_-__**3 Doors Down, Your Arms Feel Like Home.**_

_-_

"...So I take it you thought about this?" he softly asked as he looked down at her. Still wrapped in his arms, she gave him a funny look as she tilted her head upwards.

"You really are terrible at reading cues, Squall." Rinoa laughed, fully-well knowing it was joke. "Why do you think I hugged you?"

"...I don't know. To see if I'd flinch?" he guessed, obviously feigning obliviousness.

"Sounds like a neat experiment, but no." she wryly shot back. "I think I'm trying to test for the most effective method to non-verbally give you my answer without it looking incriminating to anyone who may see."

"Someone else is home?"

She shook her head. "Mm, no. I'm just being perfectly irrational to protect myself from getting any other serious 'talks' right now."

"...That bad?"

"_Yeah." _she sighed and the embrace had finally run its course. _"_She wasn't really mad but...I can tell that she really didn't see what she _thought_ we did coming and that fact hurt. We're really close so something like this must have been a slap in the face. Hyne...I can't even say that anymore. I've been hiding so much and...it's not like I want to but..."

"...You don't want to put her through all of that additional disappointment?"

She nodded. "Exactly. I don't want her to feel like we've lost touch or anything like that because I'm not purposely trying to create distance between us. I...don't want to be a huge disappointment in her eyes because I'm her only child and...I'm not exactly supposed to be here."

Squall arched a brow. "You were..." He stopped for a moment, obviously searching for the right word here. Rinoa could tell that he was on the right wave-length but she shook her head before he came up with an end to his sentence though.

"—Not..._exactly_. I was...half-wanted. Parents got married, my dad didn't want any kids and my mom tried convincing him for years about that. She finally had enough and more-or-less...took matters into her own hands. My dad was so mad when he finally figured it out but he couldn't do anything because getting rid of me in any way would have instantly killed his career if word got out."

This admission didn't help his expression any. "And...how do you know this exactly?"

"My mom told me. I really pissed off my dad when I was like...15 or 16 and he was so mad at me that he let it slip that I was an accident and that he didn't want me. Like you could probably imagine, I was really upset about that so I ran into my room crying as hard as humanly possible. A little later on, my mom came in and explained the situation and made a point to emphasize the fact that she wanted me with all of her heart_._" She stifled a small sigh. "Could I...ask you a question?"

He tentatively nodded.

"I know that you changed your last name to commemorate your grandfather but, hypothetically, if your mom had a brother to carry on the family name, would you have still changed it to what it is now?"

"...Are you asking me this because you want to change yours?" he smartly inferred. Rinoa finally let out that sigh.

"Yeah...I do." she sombrely admitted. "I'm tired about being associated with him and I wasn't kidding when I said Rinoa Christine Caraway-Heartilly was a mouthful to say. After that incident, Rinoa Heartilly has sounded more appealing to me ever since."

"You could change when you turn eighteen." he offered. "You wouldn't need any parental consent by then but it's a fair deal of paperwork to do by yourself. You'd have to submit forms for every license and identification card you have."

"The paperwork's the least of my problems Squall." she replied. "But could I get the forms ahead of time so that I just send it all in when it's my birthday?"

He shrugged. "I suppose. When's your birthday?"

Rinoa smirked. "Didn't remember that one from the e-mail I sent the one time, huh?"

"To be honest, I didn't pay attention to most of that letter."

She rolled her eyes. "...You're such a meany. I remember yours is August 23rd even though you weren't the nicest person to deal with a month ago."

"...Right, I get it. I'm an ass." he deadpanned. "Was it in March?"

"...And I thought you said you _didn't_ remember." she wryly added.

He shrugged. "The only thing I remembered was that it started with M. It was just a lucky guess."

"Okay....then pick a number."

"Why?"

"I want to test a theory."

"78."

"Between 1 and 31 smarty-pants."

"...2."

"Close enough. It's March 3rd."

"You could probably get most of forms by then."

"Would it make a difference if I don't have a driver's license yet?"

"It would be one less form to fill out."

"Alright. I'll look into that when I have time."

After that, Rinoa walked over to the microwave and opened the door. Touching the side of the container, she could tell that the leftovers had already cooled off considerably. She shut the door and pressed a few buttons to give it another minute to heat.

"It cooled off while we were talking." she explained, pointing to the microwave behind her. "I guess you were too much of a distraction."

"...I can't be blamed if you let yourself get distracted."

"Hey, I never said it was a bad thing. You're a good distraction." she pointed out. "Have I ever told you how many times you've thrown me through a loop for the act?"

"...I hope you don't think I'm going to act that way now. I'm not like that."

"No, no. I know that. It's just that it was all so seamless that I was wondering how you pulled it off considering what you were like before."

"...It just needed to be done. So I did it. That's all."

"Fair enough. So what do you think it'll be like now?"

"I...don't know. We're not in any of each other's classes. I can't imagine people purposely keeping an eye out for the little time we would be together."

Rinoa smiled. "So I guess the worst really is over, huh?"

"Depends. She could be in your classes."

"Mm. If anything it would only be my cooking class. I don't think anyone's got my Grade Eleven math class. Even then, Ivy and Adrienne are there. They won't let anything happen."

"Just be careful in any case. We probably cost her chance to graduate this year with that detention so I wouldn't be surprised if she tries something in retaliation."

"Yeah, I will."

Just then, the microwave beeped and Rinoa spun around to open its door to see if her leftovers had heated enough. After grabbing the side of it and seeing the steam rise, she was positive that it was so she took it out and put his things in its place in the microwave, closing the door and punching in a minute twenty for it.

She plucked out a fork from the drawer behind her and started lifting some of the noodles from tub, but before putting them to her mouth, she couldn't help but give him a smile. For the first time in a long while, she actually _felt_ like eating something, not just forcing herself to go through the motions.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"Hey Rinoa...Rinoa..." She felt a hand wave in front of her face several times. It definitely got her attention. She nearly jumped.

"Sorry. ...What was it Adrienne?"

Her friend smirked. "Nothing. You've just been a space cadet all class. You okay?"

"Yeah...why?"

"Class was dismissed two minutes ago and you haven't moved an inch from your chair." she explained. "If Ivy hadn't pointed it out to me, you probably would have been sitting all alone in class until the bell rang."

Her cheeks burned red at this revelation. "_Oh._"

When Rinoa got up and started to walk with her, it was only a matter of time before she continued. Even though she'd mentioned Ivy before, the teenager was nowhere in sight; it was just them and an empty corridor. "So did you pass your exams?"

"Yeah, I did really well on all of the exams except for Gym but...that was pretty much expected. Either way, I still passed so it's all good."

"That's good to hear." she commented. "So did something happen this weekend? You look pretty out of it."

"Not really."

'_...Because it all happened during weekdays._' her mind added.

"Well, not unless if you count my dog waking me up at weird times lately."

"Yeah, I hear you there. Ryan does the same thing."

Rinoa tiredly smirked. "Last time I checked, Ryan's not a...never mind. I'm guessing that pointing out the obvious wasn't going to do any good, right?"

"Yeah, I was going to ignore you on that one regardless." she semi-joshed. "So how come I didn't see you all morning? I know that cooking class is the only class we have together but I thought I would have seen you on the bus or at lunch."

"I don't come in until the afternoon." she told her. "Because the sequence of Garden's course scheduling is so much different from my old school, I can't graduate this year because of it." she expertly fibbed. "So I figured that I might as well spread my courses all out."

"Hm, makes sense. It's a shame about you not being able to graduate with everyone though."

"It's...no big deal. I don't know what I want to do after I graduate school anyway. It'll give me more time to think."

"Actually, come to think of it, you might not be the only one staying an extra year at school." Rinoa flinched a little, straining to think of who could be staying an extra year besides Nat. "Instructor Reiyn's giving Ivy a hard time about giving the gym credit because she didn't do the final physical test or participate in most of the activities."

Rinoa blinked. "Please tell me you're kidding me Adrienne. She organized all of that extra curricular stuff to make up for it."

"I'm afraid I'm not kidding. He really is considering not giving her the credit and passing off all that other stuff as only volunteer hours. Not that she needed any of those. She already met all the volunteer-hour requirements before this happened."

"Well, if that's the case, I'm going to find a way to arrange my schedule so I can babysit Ethan at school while she has gym."

Adrienne smiled a little. "I'll let her know that in case if you're too _busy_."

"...Busy? What do you mean—"

Before she had the chance to get an answer to her question, Adrienne made a sharp detour into the library pathway, leaving her standing there alone. That was until she saw the reason for her abrupt departure – she'd spotted Squall coming from the Training Centre, clad in sweat-riddled gym clothes and looking utterly spent. It was a wonder that he was still standing, really. All of a sudden, her heart started doing back flips despite his currently dishevelled appearance.

She waved him over. Once he was close enough, she started talking. "Hey, they actually made you do work today?"

"...Class hasn't been dismissed for us yet." he hastily replied. "I can't even afford to talk right now. ...Sorry."

And with that, Rinoa left alone in the huge hallway again. What baffled her was that he hadn't even stopped at all when she was talking to him, he just kept on going.

After a brief moment, she sighed. She obviously knew it wasn't personal but part of her still reacted as if it was. But in any case, if this was only the first day and his class was making this tired already, _him_ of all people, it probably wasn't going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination. She hoped that his second class was going to be a gentler so he could at least go to badminton practice and not keel over by the end of the day.

Regardless, cooking class was still fifteen minutes from being officially over and looked like she'd have to meet up with Adrienne again or else it would be a boring fifteen minutes.

Walking over to the library, it wasn't too long before she found herself passing through the doors and spotting Adrienne by the returns desk and Ivy sitting in one of the nearby table's chairs. Her presence didn't go unnoticed for far too long however. A moment later, she'd already earned a smile from Ivy and a glance from Adrienne. The latter decided to speak not long after her arrival.

"Hey, I thought you were going to be _busy_."

Rinoa shook her head. "The class he's in is making him jump through hoops. He couldn't afford to talk." she replied. "I feel really bad for him though. He looked whipped."

Adrienne must have found something she said incredibly funny because she looked like she was fighting a huge smile. "Oh you do not want to know what I just thought of."

Rinoa rolled her eyes. "...What, that I whipped him?"

"Uh-huh."

"I'm not going to tell you you're bad because I'm pretty sure telling you something you already know is pointless."

"Good observation."

Rinoa looked over at Ivy with a theatrical sigh. "...See what I have to deal with?"

"You're not the only one Rinoa." she answered. She rolled up a sleeve and revealed some pen on her forearm. "I've been doodled on."

"Hey, it's not my fault I had to drink an ungodly amount of coffee after I only got three hours of sleep because Alexis wouldn't quit making a racket doing God-knows-what." Adrienne protested. Surprisingly enough, it was all said in one breath.

"_Alexis _making a racket? My God, has the world turned upside down?" Ivy teased. Adrienne tossed her a look.

"You'd be up too if you kept on hearing her noisy keyboard going non-stop like it did last night. It was insane. I'm not making this up Ivy."

Rinoa put her hand on her friend's shoulder in calm, reassuring matter. "Maybe you should sit down for awhile. You might have a heart attack if you don't."

"You should do as Rinoa says, Adrienne." Ivy chimed in a soft tone. "I think you've had enough coffee for the three of us."

"Okay, okay." she conceded. "I'll sit down. Maybe I'll mellow out just by hanging around you two until the bell rings."

After the two standing teenagers had seated themselves at Ivy's table, Rinoa cracked a smirk. "It's a shame Squall can't be here, you would have mellowed out big time around him if your '_hanging-around-quiet-people-stops-me-from-having-heart-attack-from-caffeine_' theory works."

Adrienne returned her smirk. "...I don't think I'd be that tolerable right now. I mean, I've already bugged the crap out of you two already. But having him here to mellow me out is a nice excuse anyway."

"Hey...I wasn't using you as an excuse, Adrienne. I meant what I said."

'..._Or did I?_' her mind once again added, '_Hyne...maybe I really didn't._'

"Sorry, it's just the excessive caffeine speaking. I'm not thinking straight right now." she apologized. "Ignore any bone-headed comments that may come out of my mouth."

Rinoa resisted all urges to make a comment on what she had just said, opting to stay silent. Fortunately enough, Ivy filled the silence she forged quite nicely.

"All comments aside, how is he?" Ivy asked, "-Aside from what you said earlier of course."

"Good." Rinoa answered. "He managed to pass Lit and got ridiculously-awesome grades in everything else."

"He managed to pass Lit?" Adrienne repeated, "I had no idea he wasn't doing that well before. I guess that shows how much I've been paying attention."

"Yeah, his oral presentation and creative writing marks were really dragging his Lit grade down."

"I noticed that much from before you had to go over his house when he was sick." Ivy added. "Presentation-wise, I mean."

"Actually, come to think of it-" Adrienne interjected, "-something's not clicking here."

Rinoa froze. "I'm sorry...could you explain what you mean by '_not clicking.'_ I'm not following you."

"I can't remember," she mused aloud, "-have you ever told us when you two started going out?"

"No...it must have slipped my mind. Why?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong but... if you went over his Lit stuff at his house, I don't see how you could possibly know that he was failing without seeing his papers or midterm report card. You'd only know that he had trouble with the poetry unit—_unless_..."

"_Unless...what?_" Rinoa tentatively repeated.

"Unless the timeline I'm mentally picturing is completely off. But even then... No, that still doesn't make sense." Adrienne shook her head. "...You weren't his Lit tutor before, were you?"

Although she was temped to take the easy way out and just say yes, seeing as it was true in a sense, she shook her head.

"So...this didn't start when you took care of him at his house?"

Rinoa shook her head. "No, this...started earlier but...there's an explanation for what you're probably thinking of."

"..._Alright._"

'_I hope this'll explain enough and get this all out of the way even though I wasn't expecting this to happen at all.'_ she mentally lamented. _'Hopefully I remembered all of what Squall worked out as a back-story for this._'

"I started going out with him in November but it wasn't anything serious yet so we kept it to ourselves in case if it wasn't worth taking it publically. But in mid-December, we got into an argument and it upset me enough to want to take a break. I did have my reservations about getting set up on that blind date with Tyler after that, but sometimes things just....I don't know, _click, happen _or whatever it could be called."

Rinoa steadied herself for the finale to this fabrication, figuring she could use the quick hook-up as fodder for this. Squall had been right all those weeks ago; she shouldn't have forgiven him for what he'd done. And now, she felt like she owed this much to herself.

"But, after I wasn't looking at this new relationship through rose-coloured glasses anymore, I realized that I'd made a big mistake about all of this when...something almost happened. I guess I started to appreciate Squall more after that and I...finally admitted it to myself when I was helping him at his house. By then, I realized that breaking it off after what we argued about was silly."

When the end of her intricately-woven web of lies was met with a convinced look on Adrienne's face, Rinoa secretly breathed a sigh of relief. It had worked and the end of her tale was luckily punctuated with the shrill sound of the bell. But it was only when Adrienne took her things gave them both a curt goodbye that she truly knew that she was off of the hook. Looking back at Ivy once the other teenager was out of an earshot, Rinoa gave her a faint smile.

"Hopefully enough the caffeine will be out of her system so she'll be able to sit still in her Algebra class." she joked.

She gave her a polite smile in return. "I hope so too. I know that Mr. Roupiard isn't the most patient math teacher ever which will most likely work against him, considering that it's a fourth period class. People will be antsy to leave school."

Rinoa half-heartedly shrugged. "Mm...I don't think it would have mattered when. People are more-or-less dead at first period, hungry at second and tired from eating lunch at third."

"That's true." she chuckled in agreement, slowly getting up from her chair. "..._Rinoa?_"

All of a sudden, her tone had changed from light-hearted to that of concern in zero seconds flat. Rinoa froze once again. Had she overlooked the notion of convincing them both and not just Adrienne?

"Um..yes?"

"I apologize if this'll seem out of the blue, but one thing you said made me remember something so, if it's alright, I'd like to ask you a question." she continued. Since she was still clueless regarding what she could possibly ask about save for the fact that it had something to do with the lie, she hesitantly nodded. "_Was he...responsible for that scare you had in November?_"

Her first instinct was to give her a flat-out _'no'_ to her question, but her mouth coincidentally chose that moment to stop working at all. Instead, she started coughing up a storm; the fit triggered by a sudden dry patch in her throat. It wasn't long before she had to rip open her backpack to dig for the water bottle in it to help. By the time she'd swigged enough water to stop the hacking however, she noticed that Ivy was right beside her, looking her in the eye.

"_Please_," she softly whispered, "_-please don't tell me that that was the argument you said that you thought was silly later on._ _That's nothing you should take lightly._"

Rinoa shook her head vigorously. "_No, he...it had nothing to do with him._"

Ivy furrowed her brows, continuing in the same low whisper. "_It's a two-way street Rinoa; one person is never entirely to blame for that under normal circumstances._"

"_No, no, you got me all wrong. I—_" Rinoa paused in mid-sentence after spotting Squall further away in the library, clad in his regular clothes again. Ivy had seemingly noticed that something in the other teenager's sight was distracting her so she looked back for a moment as well.

"..._If you're not comfortable discussing this now, that's fine. I'll be around._" Shortly after, she quietly walked out of the library and Rinoa found herself magnetically pulled to where Squall was. He must have picked up on something because he didn't look very at ease either.

"_I screwed up._" she blurted in a hushed voice. He gave her a bemused look. "_...I got into a position where I had to tell my two friends the back-story that you made about us and...the timeline made one of them possibly wonder if that 'unexpected' event tied back you because she only knows that I had 'that' kind of scare. But don't worry though, I'm positive that I'll be able to fix this if I...just get the chance to tell her about what actually happened._"

"You don't sound like you want to."

"No I ...don't." she sighed. "_I'd...have to get into a lot of details that I don't really feel ready to share with anyone else. Not to mention...I'd also have to find a way to explain why I looked so sick and nervous in November if I was secretly with you so you won't look bad_."

"...Maybe you're better off letting her think that what she suspects is right."

Rinoa did a double-take. "What?"

"Let her think it's true." he reiterated.

"No," she protested, "I don't want her to think badly of you."

"_Just hear me out._" he softly told her. "_You're going to have to make up a story in either case, so you might as well make it my fault with some kind of logical explanation so you can save face._"

"...You mean that?"

He nodded. "It'll be good practice for when everything will be my fault anyway."

Rinoa chuckled. "I'll run a draft by you for the explanation later on then. I'll see you later."

She leaned in to give him a quick peck on the cheek only to have his hand stop her from going any further; the tips of his fingers had lightly pushed her body away from him so she just settled for a nod just as the fourth-period bell rang, lingering there for a brief moment afterwards.

She'd already figured that being late for Math would be the least of her problems.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments **– Sorry for the slight delay. School got in the way again but I'm surviving. I'm a little tired, but still here. Hope it was okay even though this is nowhere near as exciting as the last one. Oh well. Can't win 'em all.

_Toodles,_

-_Emerald-Latias_


	45. Chapter XLIV – Story Telling

**Author's Notes – **Hehe. I thought that the last chapter wasn't so interesting so it was nice to hear some very positive comments about it. Thanks a bunch you guys!

Ahem, on to some _serious_ matters now. In case if you're curious, the longest fic in the VIII fandom is 426,201 words. Egads, I have my work cut out for me if I wanted to claim that top spot.

Oh well, I don't know unless if I try, but I'm _preeetty_ sure I won't get there with this fic unless if I find something cool to stuff in here on top of what I have planned. Anyone up for ten chapters of Rinoa having weird dreams that adds nothing to do with the story whatsoever?

_...No?_ Okay then. I'll settle for whatever I can scrap then. :D

**Fun fact -** I went on site to calculate how many days since I posted the prologue to this and between the start to last chapter, it's been 627 days (not counting the 13th since it was an hour past midnight) or a 1 year, 8 months and 19 days. This averages out to 324.4 words per day during that span of time.

**Second fun fact -** I am a _huge_ nerd._ (...Which should be blatantly obvious by now. XD)_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XLIV – Story Telling**

-

_For every piece to fall in place,  
Forever gone without a trace,  
Your horizon takes its shape,  
No turning back, don't turn that page.  
_

_**-Foo Fighters, Long Road To Ruin.**_

-

Her eyes were lazily watching the birdie go back and forth over the net, ping-ponging incessantly but never paying full attention. Her mind was where the real action was, the thoughts ricocheting off the inside of her skull, some good at placing well-aimed shots and winning points, others not as much. She was keeping tabs on that match; that was one of the few things she knew with certainty. Everything else was a mess with all sorts of odds, ends and fragmented notions littering her brain.

If only things were as simple as hitting a birdie over a net.

Rinoa secretly sighed while admiring his form from the sidelines where a couple of seats were set up for the random stragglers, such as herself, and for the players who needed a rest or who were waiting for a court to open up.

'_Would it possibly help to organize a list of all the thoughts bugging me right now to attack one at a time?'_ she mused, '_Might as well, it couldn't hurt._'

With the notepad she brought for the purpose of jotting down anything she thought of for the excuse she had to make for what Ivy misunderstood, she went to work immediately. That is, after she took a thorough look around the area for others.

-—-

1. Something stupid I probably shouldn't have done.

2. Something smart I probably should have done.

3. How do I put a positive spin on going out with someone who potentially '_put something in my oven?_'

4. ...I suck at making lists.

5. Why did I write '_put something in my oven?_'

6. Better yet, why did I bother doing this?

7. Why can't I shake the feeling that someone's going to look over this?

8. ...And that the person will wonder if I'm a total nutbar.

9. Squall, I know that you're looking over my shoulder so you can stop it right now.

10. I'm serious, stop it. It's not for you to—

_11. What's this list for?_

12. It's for the things I'm thinking about right now so I can sort this all out in my confused little brain. Thanks for stealing my pen and notepad by the way.

_13. You're welcome._

14. Meany.

_15. Last time I checked, 'meany' wasn't a real word or a proper insult for that matter._

16. I'll make up whatever insult I want to since it's my notepad. Wait...why are we writing in this instead of talking to each other?

_17. Because it's more interesting to anticipate what the other person could write next instead of just talking._

18. Your shirt is almost see-through from this angle. ;D

_19. Real mature Rinoa._

20. What? I'm just proving your theory. Besides, it's only natural that your shirt's gotten see-through with sweat since it looks like it's a really thin shirt.

_21. Why don't I take the shirt off if you seem so preoccupied with it?_

22. ...I can't tell if you're being sarcastic there. You're gonna need to clarify that so I can write something obscene just to annoy you because you won't quit being a kleptomaniac.

_23. I wasn't aware that you knew the word 'kleptomaniac.'_

24. You're **this** close from getting tickled you double-meany. **This** close.

_25. If you're tempted to tickle me, you might as well do it somewhere else because practice is done for me._

26. (o.O;)..._?!_

_27. Get your mind out of the gutter. That's not what I meant._

28. Haha. I know, I know. You want to leave now?

_29. Yeah. Wait for me here. I need to change._

-—-

After she had read that last message, Rinoa covered her mouth from the spontaneous and potentially-combustive giggles threatening to escape the confines of her mouth. This had all been so weird and yet so entertaining at the same time. It was a wonder no one had caught him passing that notepad back and forth like that. Still, she was very thankful for that brief act of randomness on his part. It made the whole issue of his distant behaviour at third period all the more easier to interpret as being intermittent and not continual. It didn't help with the fact that she still had to find a way to make it understandable to have slept with him before going out but some victories came faster than others. Just like those seen on a badminton court.

When he left however, her mind went straight to work on that quandary again.

'_Ok,' _she started to think, '_she doesn't know when it happened, just that it did at some point. Ok. So that gives me a little leeway there. Hm. The party wasn't held too far away from his house so he could have...walked by late at night for no apparent reason after I went outside?_'

'_No, that doesn't make sense._'

'_Ok, so maybe it'll have to be before the party. Maybe a week or two before, I took a walk and ended up going past his house. He happened to be setting something up for Halloween and was having trouble because it was a two-man operation. Maybe I asked if he needed help and when he turned around I recognized him then._'

'_Good. But where do I go with this?_'

'_Maybe Raine comes out and brings him more things and before he can object to my help, she asks who I am and he says that I'm from school and that my name's Rinoa. Then maybe there's big misunderstanding and she thinks that I'm an acquaintance or friend because he actually knew my name?'_

'_Yeah, that sounds like I'm on the right track here. ...Not to mention, it kind of sounds realistic. Er...never mind— gotta keep thinking.' _

She safely stowed her notebook and pen away into her backpack.

'_Hm.._._maybe I try to excuse myself and Raine says that I shouldn't leave on her account and maybe Squall groans or slaps his forehead at that point. Raine gets annoyed and he clarifies that I'm not his friend or anything, just an assignment partner and...wait, how is this going to lead to him doing me and explaining this whole mess?_'

'_Hyne, I'm going nuts. I ended up doing a believable role-play when I should have been figuring out an excuse. ...I think I need psychological help._'

Ironically enough, Squall chose that moment to come back to tap her on the shoulder. She immediately swivelled her upper body to face him. Okay, so maybe '_psychological help_' was a far cry from making this ironic but....

'_Never mind_,' Rinoa's brain dismissed, '-_you're only going to confuse yourself with that.'_

She looked up at him with a grimace. "You do _not_ want to know what I thinking of."

He gave her a skeptical look. "I doubt that you mean that considering you just said it aloud instead of keeping it to yourself."

"...Yeah, you're right." she sheepishly admitted. "I'll tell you on the way to your house."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"...I don't know if I should be impressed or worried after hearing that." he commented as he turned onto another street. They were about 10 minutes away from his house. "Sounds like something I'd do."

"Yeah, but that whole thing goes nowhere though. It's useless unless this is supposed to be a story that quickly jumps from girl annoys boy to boy likes girl and then to boy does girl."

"People aren't supposed to make sense." he pointed out. "Nor is everything perfectly rational."

"True, but how can I make this lie fit into our relationship and not change too much? It's not like you're a womanizer that I converted or something."

"I have no idea unless if you want to imply that we went about this backwards somehow. I don't think you want to go the 'we were extremely drunk' route."

"Yeah, that would be bad." she lightly-chuckled before reprising her former timbre. "...Actually. I think I have an idea."

"Hm?"

"I'll tell her that we got to know each other before by that decorating thing, on top of bumping into you outside of school in general, follow up with the truth about why this happened and say that this relationship started because you made a point of...I don't know, I don't want to say comforting because that would require knowing but maybe I could say that..."

"—that I was just _there_?" he interjected. Surprisingly enough, it filled the blank she had nicely.

"Yeah, that sounds about right." she added. "And maybe you liked me because there was something _there _that you couldn't quite explain. Sound okay so far?"

"Sure. ...Having me like you for some vague and unexplained reason on my part will probably make it seem more realistic." he said semi-self-depreciatingly.

Ignoring the whole self-depreciating aspect of his reply, Rinoa continued. "Alright then. So could it be safe to say that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch if I looked nervous because I was worried that my past would catch up with me since this was starting between us?"

"...I think you got your excuse Rinoa. But...I think it would be better if you found a way to make it my fault for this. Whatever your reason must have been for what happened...I can't imagine it being something you could casually rattle off."

Even though he wouldn't see this if his eyes were focused on the road, Rinoa had a bittersweet smile for him. "...You don't have to protect me this time." she softly told him. "It's...fine. It was bound to come out at some point."

"That '_some point_' doesn't have to be now." he said, reiterating his point. "I know that you can buy yourself enough time until you're actually ready."

Rinoa sighed. "_Alright..._what if..." She racked her brains high and low before thinking of anything half-coherent came to mind. "What if...at that party, I went outside for some fresh air, spotting you walk by. I said hi and asked you if you had been invited to the party. You said, 'No, why would I have been? I'm not exactly the type to be asked,' and then I jump you for no apparent reason?"

"...I'd swear you were on acid." he deadpanned.

"Sorry. I was just trying to lighten the mood. I can't think of anything past asking you a question in the scenario."

"...Continue by informally inviting me, I'll refuse your invitation and then you keep on pestering me until I somehow end up following you somewhere else for some reason I can't pin down."

Rinoa chuckled. "Alright, that sounds like something I can do. So maybe the idea can be that I informally invite you to a party I didn't want to be at and when you say no, I'll say, _'That's okay, I wasn't in the mood to stay at the party anyway,'_ and actually start walking home since it's not too far. Now, how would you react to that back then if I wasn't a total stranger to you?"

"I'd tell you that you're an idiot for trying to walk home alone in the dark."

"Good, good. I can work with that. Ok, so afterwards, I turn around and say, '_well, I don't want to be in there and I don't need my ride home because I'm not drunk, so what do you suggest I do then?_' and then you sigh and reluctantly say that '_if it'll stop you from doing something incredibly stupid, I'll stay with you outside until your ride's ready to bring you home._' I give you a weird look and you say that you're only doing this so that you won't have any guilt in case if something does happen if I were to walk home. I end up really appreciating it although I wonder about this side of you I've never seen before. So in an attempt to understand you better, we go to some park nearby and I ask you some random questions and you only give me short answers in hopes that it'll shut me up."

"...That sounds very accurate." he commented after stopping at a red light in the last intersection before getting to his house.

"And maybe I ask if you had any girlfriends and I notice that you involuntarily tense after I said that so I apologize by saying, '_I'm sorry if I hit any buttons. I had a jerk of an ex-boyfriend so I know what it's like to be reminded of something you don't want to be reminded of_.' And maybe you reply with, '_It's not that,_' to try to correct me without being specific and it doesn't work because I try guessing why. We can pretend that the truth is that she moved away so when I try asking if she moved away, you reluctantly nod."

"...And I assume that a conversation somehow develops and leads to the other event?"

"...If you think that'll work, sure."

"I don't know. How will the aftermath affect things?"

"Well, after we could both realize that it was a mistake and try to pretend that it never happened but that it doesn't work because maybe we realized that there was something there even before the lapse in judgement. Then...what I explained for the other scenario could work."

"No...It doesn't sound right."

"Alright, that's fine then. Do you have any ideas then?"

"Maybe the relationship in this instance starts because I felt confused and guilty about what I'd just done to you so I decided to go out with you privately so we could both save face and to help ignore the reality that it was just a one night stand."

"So the argument could be just the result of everything imploding because of that, using a silly argument as an excuse to break it off?"

"Sounds reasonable. What would be the reason for getting back together then?"

"Hm...I could say that the distance helped put things in perspective for us. Maybe once you were away from me for those couple of weeks in Esthar, you were able to realize that there was something there and that it wasn't just because of the guilt related to that one night and I realized that, I knew that I deserved someone better than someone who was just after one thing and despite being confused of where we stood before, I knew that you weren't ever going to ever do that to me. And after seeing you like that all miserable, sick and still in need of help in Lit after the break, a tiny part of me also realized that maybe you needed me too."

He turned right onto his street and made another quick right into his driveway. Once he put the gear into park and cut the engine, he turned to look at her.

"I think you have your novel."

Rinoa smiled. "Hey...what turned it from an excuse to a novel?" she light-heartedly asked.

"Because excuses don't run over five minutes." he answered. "People usually stop listening by then."

"Alright, alright. Maybe it is a novel." she conceded. "So...are you ready for this dinner?"

"Not...really. I have a faint suspicion that someone's going to pull out baby photos."

"Aw."

"No, it's not an 'aw' moment. They took 7 albums worth of photos that went until I was 4 years old. I hate cameras because of it."

"...Wow, really? That must have been a lot of money to have it all developed, especially if they did the same for your sister."

"She had her fair share of photos but they didn't go nowhere near as overboard for her."

Rinoa gave him a weird look. "That...doesn't make sense. Isn't it usually the other way around?"

"I was told that some of the shots taken were for my grandfather in the hospital. Doubles were made for the albums."

"Oh wow. So they took that many extra photos to fill up that many albums?"

"Mostly." he nonchalantly mentioned.

When he finally took the key out of the engine, he looked over to see her mildly-confused expression.

"...Does that mean there's another reason then?" she asked.

He rubbed his eyes with his one hand. "...I'm their only biological child. My parents were told that they couldn't have children so they adopted my sister and you can probably assume the rest."

"So I guess it makes you...the opposite of my situation then."

"More-or-less." he shrugged. "But...you can use _that_ word if you want. I won't get offended."

"Actually, I wasn't going to. But it's kind weird to know that we're both._..unexpected_ in one way or another."

"...Well, it's not information that I'd normally volunteer."

"Same here." she agreed. "So, should we go in?"

He nodded just before opening the door, getting out and opening the back seat door on his side to get his things. She did the same, though she took her own knapsack from the other back door. Taking in the cold February air, she walked over to the other side, meeting up with him at the door. Their shared apprehensive glances rewarded with nothing after Squall opened the door; no one seemed to be home. The lights were all dimmed and, as they walked down the corridor, there weren't any signs of life to be heard of. The closest thing seemed to indicate any kind of human presence was the fact that the cutlery, dishes and glasses were set on the table in the dining room. Even then, was a weak indication at best.

As they walked further down the desolate hallway, the scent of some kind of roast wafted into Rinoa's nostrils. Squall must have smelled it too because he immediately veered into the kitchen. Interestingly enough, it was the only lit room in the entire main floor.

All of a sudden, they both stopped dead in their tracks.

The stove was off and there were peeled and mostly-cooked potatoes scattered about the floor near the kitchen sink, water puddles everywhere. A pot, which presumably belonged to the potatoes, was in the kitchen sink and ones on the stove seemed to be purposely moved from the currently turned-off burners. Squall carefully tip-toed around the potatoes and water puddles to open the stove door. Once it was opened, he took one good look before turning towards her.

"...The roast hasn't burned."

Rinoa carefully moved closer to see it for herself. "...It looks like it's been perfectly cooked. Squall, you might want to check your phone for messages."

After closing the door, Squall fished his phone from his pockets and flipped it open. Something must have been there because he put it to his ear a few seconds later. A minute had passed before he pocketed the phone again.

"My dad accidentally got in the way while my mom was bringing the potatoes over to drain the water in the sink. The hot water spilled all over him and the pot fell on his one foot so he slipped and hit his head hard. They're in the emergency room and my mom apologizes for having to cancel like this. She said that we could help ourselves to the roast in the oven and the vegetables in the pots on the stove."

Rinoa blinked. "Don't take this the wrong way but...is it just me or does that sound really similar to the thing that happened to us?"

"......It does." he hesitantly agreed.

"So...um, did you want me to stay?"

He gave her a weird look. "You...didn't have to ask that. It's not like I was going to kick you out because my parents aren't here."

"I know. It's just that...I wasn't sure if you might have been uncomfortable with just me in your house, especially when your parents had a spill like what happened to us. It could have reminded you of that...other day."

"...No, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Coincidences like that don't mean anything." The he went for the jugular. "...Are you a little uncomfortable here?"

Rinoa paused for a second. "...A little. But I think it's just because I feel like I'm trespassing in your house right now because most of the lights are off."

"...You don't have to make up some kind of excuse for me Rinoa." he plainly replied, cutting through her fabrication. "If this is making you uncomfortable, I can take you home."

"No, no. I'll stay." she dismissed, mentally trying to convince herself that history won't repeat. "It'll be nice to not have anyone else around."

"Alright. If it's what you want, I'll clean this mess up and tell you when I have everything at the table." he said. "You can wait wherever."

"Actually..." A thought had just occurred to her. "If it's alright with you, I'll try to call Ivy about today's mix-up to get it out of the way before I forget the scenario we made up."

He nodded. "You can use my room if you want some privacy. I'll have everything ready on the table so you can just go to the dining room when you're done."

"Okay, thanks."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

'_Come on...pick up...pick up..._'

_Click. _

"_Hello?"_

'_Oh thank Hyne...'_

"Hi Ivy, it's Rinoa. Do you have some time on your hands to talk for a while?"

"_Supper's already done so I have plenty of time. Could you just wait a moment while I go to my room?_"

"Yeah, it's no problem."

"_Alright._"

Rinoa could hear the sound of her footsteps up a stairway along with some breathing on her end. She heard a somewhat noisy _'thunk'_ sound when Ivy began to speak again.

"_Sorry for the wait. I'm so out of shape now that it's not funny. In any case, feel free to tell me whatever is on your mind._"

"Alright." She took one last deep breath, readying herself for the performance of a lifetime. "You know what happened today when I was telling you guys about Squall and I?"

"_Yes?_"

"Well...I need to clear up a few things."

"_Go ahead, I'm listening._"

"Okay, but promise me you won't tell Adrienne, alright? I'm not trying to exclude her but...this is kind of hard to say so if she's not asking any questions, I'd like to keep things simple."

"_Sure._"

"Alright, the thing is that...Squall does have something to do with that scare, but it's not what you think so just bear with me because I have to explain a lot of things. Before anything happened, I found out where he lived because I was walking around my neighbourhood and I saw someone having trouble trying to put up Halloween decorations. I asked the person if they needed help before I realized it was him. I was expecting a definite no from him but his mom came out with more stuff and asked who I was so he never got the chance to shoo me away. He told her that I was from school and she accidentally thought that I was a friend because he actually knew my name."

Rinoa took another breath.

"I even tried excusing myself because I could tell that he was not amused but his mom was saying things like, _'Oh you don't have to leave on my account, you can stay if you'd like._' But the funniest part was that when he actually tried clarifying things with his mom, his dad came out and asked who I was so his mom told him so I was practically stuck there by then. I felt so bad for Squall because it was painfully obvious that he was so out of place with me around."

When Ivy hadn't commented on that when she'd expected her to, she used the moment to collect her thoughts since she'd gone a little further into detail than what she'd thought of earlier.

"But after that, we sort of got to know each other a little by little because I kept on bumping into him in and outside of school. When it kept on happening, I noticed that he didn't mind it as much as time went on, like he got used to it or something. Anyway, I ended up bumping into him again outside at that Halloween party."

"_I had no idea that he was invited. I didn't see him while I was there._"

"No, he wasn't, actually. I had to go outside to get some air after watching Nat puke her guts out in the toilet after you left and I saw him walking by so I said hi. When he turned around and I asked if he'd been invited to the party, he said something like, _'No, why would I be?_' I was really bored by then so I more-or-less unofficially invited him."

"..._And I take it that he said no?_"

Rinoa secretly sighed in relief, glad that it Ivy was finally making comments and asking questions she could answer. It felt odd just going on and on like she had before.

"Yeah, he said no. But the weirdest thing was that when I said that it was okay and started walking home because I knew that I'd have to wait forever for Lucy to bring the rest of us all home, I outright heard him say that I was an idiot if I was trying to walk home alone in the dark."

"_Well...it's sort of understandable Rinoa. And the fact that we were all wearing kind of revealing costumes probably wouldn't have helped you any._"

"I understand why but, at the time, I was just surprised that _he _cared, you know?"

"_Sure._"

"Anyway, I told him that I didn't want to be at the party anymore and the whole problem with waiting for Lucy to drive me back and asked him what he'd suggest I do. He sighed after and said, and I quote,_ 'if it'll stop you from doing something incredibly stupid, I'll stay with you outside until your ride's ready to bring you home._' Obviously, I was shocked enough by that that I started to wonder about what he was really like so when we ended up at the nearby park, I think I bombarded him in random questions just to get to know him better."

"..._Did he answer any of them?_"

"He...did. But they were only short answers so I think he was just feeding my curiosity in hopes of getting me to shut up."

Rinoa heard a couple of laughs in the background. "_That sounds like him, alright._"

"...Yeah, but I finally ended up getting a longer answer from him when I hit a button."

"_...You got him angry?_"

"No, I got him silent and tense."

"_Um...could you explain more? I don't quite follow._"

"Yeah, I was getting to that. The thing was that I asked if he had any girlfriends as a joke, and I noticed that he was really uneasy after that. When he stopped saying anything at all I knew that something must have been bothering him because I could relate to the behaviour from past messy break-ups. But when I tried apologizing by telling him that, he just said, '_It's not that,_' I couldn't shake the feeling that it was bothering him a lot more than just a bad ex."

"_So I assume you figured out what it was?_"

"Yeah, I don't know how I managed to pull it out of him but, I found out that he was forced to break up with a long-time girlfriend because she moved too far away for it to still work out. But..."

"..._I don't like the sound of that 'but' Rinoa._"

"...It just hit harder than I ever thought it would. I ended up telling him all about my last jerk of a boyfriend, spilling my heart out and everything. I don't know what it was, but, the similar problems, the same kind of loneliness we'd endured...we just _clicked._ And...because of that, one thing lead to another. I guess, you could say that although his situation was a lot more heart-wrenching and sad, I was the needier of the two of us. I tried to fill an emotional void in the worst possible way and ended up using his vulnerability in the process even though he tried stopping what was happening. None of it was his fault and I mean that now and when I'd said it earlier today."

"..._I...had no idea you had problems like that before. You seemed so content to fit in with all of us._"

"I was but...some things I just couldn't fix with friendship. Parts of me were still really unhappy with the things in my past and I tried hiding those parts the best I could."

"_I don't mean to sound rude but...what you two have now, is it all a just a facade?_"

"To be honest, it used to be, back when we kept it to ourselves. Squall...I think he asked me out privately for us both to save face and to escape the fact we'd had a one-night stand together. For awhile, the ruse was working and things were going well, but then I started feeling sick and I started worrying that I was pregnant from the incident. Even though I tried keeping a strong face, everything was crumbling and I think it was imploding with him too."

"_So it didn't change after finding out that you weren't pregnant?_"

"Ivy?"

"..._Yeah?_"

"I...have a bit of a confession to make."

"_...Did you lie about the doctor telling you that you weren't pregnant?_"

"No, wouldn't have lied about something like that to you. I...omitted some information because I...wasn't ready to tell anyone at the time and I didn't want you to think about it because of the situation you were in then."

The line went silent for a good minute and a half. Rinoa thought she heard some crying on the other end.

"Ivy? ...Are you still there?"

"_Yes...I am._" Rinoa heard her clear her throat. ".._.The doctor...he told you you'd suffered a miscarriage, didn't he?_"

Even though she was all alone in this room at the moment and talking on the phone no less, she looked away as the water welled in the corner of her eyes.

"...He did."

"_My God Rinoa...you went through all that without telling anyone? I can't even begin to imagine how hard that must have been to carry that weight on your shoulders." _There was a short pause on her end. _"Oh Hyne...and then I started that thing about Ethan kicking at Alexis's birthday with that stupid phrase about you not being able to relate! ...I'm so, so sorry. You don't how infinitely bad I feel like right now._"

"It's alright Ivy, I know that it was just a coincidence, and besides, I've heard worse stuff from Nat."

"_Hyne...that's right, the rumour about you fooling around with Squall... Rinoa, I don't know how you've endured all this and haven't self-destructed by now._"

"You'd have to thank Squall for that one." she said, this being the first entirely truthful sentence this whole conversation. "Oh wait, I suppose I should continue where I left off so you're not so confused by that last sentence there."

"_It's fine Rinoa._"

"Alright, the day the winter break started was the day where everything finally came tumbling down. There was just no reason to continue it anymore so when we had a small argument about the history project since we couldn't get a hold of Seifer for his part of the project, we somehow dragged our relationship into it. The argument was really silly, but I think at that point we were just looking for an excuse to break it off and that's exactly what ended up happening. Nat and the others set me up with Tyler and things just happened like I described them to you earlier today. But..."

"..._Things weren't as simple for you and Squall getting back together?_"

"Yeah. The time away from each other gave us both some time to think and to gain some perspective about things. For Squall, I think it was just a matter of separating himself from the guilt and confusion on what first happened to realize that there actually was something there. And being with Tyler for that short time made me realize that I deserved someone who wasn't only after one thing and that, despite being confused about everything, Squall was that someone and as backwards as his approach might have been, he already showed me that he wasn't that type of person. Even still, it was only when I saw him all miserable, sick and still in need of help in Lit after the break that I started to think of trying to start over on the hunch that maybe, just maybe, he needed me too."

"_So you decided to give this another try when you were at his house like you'd mentioned before?_"

"Yes, we did. Hyne, I can't even begin to describe how much nicer it is this time since we wanted to be with each other on our own terms, not because we felt like we had to the first time."

"_I'm glad for you Rinoa. You deserve to be happy and I mean that. __**Oh-**_"

"What is it?"

"_I think Ethan wanted to tell you the same too. He just kicked me hard._"

Rinoa laughed. "I am so gonna spoil that little boy when he comes out. I swear he knows just how to tug at my heartstrings the right way with his coincidentally-timed kicks."

"_I'm sure he'll love his Auntie Rinoa too._"

"Aw, thank you."

"_It's the least I can say after jumping to conclusions like I had._"

"It's alright Ivy. No one knows a lot about Squall, so it's understandable to make an assumption or two."

"_And it'll be the last time I'll find myself doing it. You need all the support you can get right now with Nat being the way she has._"

"Yeah I know. But let's not talk about that now. I think we'll run up a phone bill the size of Galbadia if we do."

Rinoa heard a small laugh on the other end of the line. "That's true. Alright, see you in cooking class Rinoa."

"You too Ivy. Have a nice night."

"You too Rinoa."

Click.

And with that, she flopped back on his bed for a brief, cleansing moment. There had been one other statement in that conversation outside of owing Squall for not self-destructing, though the truth in the sentence had been meant in a different context.

"_**Yes, we did. Hyne, I can't even begin to describe how much nicer it is this time since we wanted to be with each other on our own terms, not because we felt like we had to the first time."**_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"...Please don't tell me you've been waiting for me to eat. It's been forty minutes." she chided. He shrugged.

"Cleaning took fifteen minutes, reheating the roast and vegetables took ten to fifteen minutes and finding the right platter and bowls for them were took awhile because I'm not the one who does this sort of thing in the house."

"Alright, alright. I'll pretend to believe you just so this doesn't go cold _'again'._" she sarcastically replied while spooning some corn onto her plate, eventually sliding it closer to Squall so he could cut and put some of the roast onto it.

"How did i_t_-" Cut. Cut. Cut. "-g_o_-" Cut. Cut. "-_w_ith her? Is this al_l_-" Cut. "-cleared up?"

"Yes it is. I adlibbed a little but it worked out in the end."

He put the piece onto her plate and began cutting a piece for himself. "What did yo_u_-" Cut. Cut. Cut. Cut. "-adlib?"

"Just the parts we didn't go too much into detail when we were working the story out. I...ended up telling her about my miscarriage and the part with our '_mistake_'...I basically told her the truth where we hadn't specified. It was very...cathartic."

Just then, Squall missed the section of roast he was cutting and made a clanking noise when the carving knife hit the dish. They exchanged glances with one another soon after.

"...And I suppose you didn't know I knew the word cathartic?" she pre-emptively asked.

"No, I'm surprised you chose to tell her about what actually happened to you since the story gave you free licence to make everything up."

"It got me to the same end, so it's all that matters to me Squall. I even came to a conclusion of my own too."

He raised his brow after the second sentence. "...What's that supposed to mean?"

Looking in his direction, her heart started to race, thinking back to the entire conversation with Ivy, but she kept her emotions under control as she downplayed what she actually meant by 'conclusion'. "Let's just say...my conclusion was that I owe you a lot."

He looked away from her, concentrating on cutting the roast once again. "...Just stay healthy and we'll call it even."

She nodded and was happy to oblige and let her stomach tauten with food. She'd have to thank Raine the next time she'd see her.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments - **Hope that was fast enough. I'm going to bed. Night!

_-Emerald-Latias_


	46. Chapter XLV – Dishes and Discussions

**Author's Notes – **I'm still chugging along although school's been putting a serious wrench in my plans. But in any case, this getting to be so much fun to write! Well...not like it wasn't before, it's just that sometimes you hit a few dry patches.

Oh, and I just realized something. I sort-of referenced a line from the game in Chapter 42 without noticing it. In the game when everyone's at the orphanage and Squall's in his own little world he thinks,_ 'We had a lot of arguments at first. But in time, things began to change,' _and in the chapter he says to Rinoa, "Things...change Rinoa." I know it's not the same but I still feel like it's a loose reference considering it gives off that same kind of feeling, you know? Ah, whatever.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XLV – Dishes and Discussions**

_-_

_As the sun goes down in front of me,  
It reminds me of where I want to be,  
With you and you alone,  
Pull me in like you were made for me,  
I'm losing faith in gravity,  
I just need to let you know,  
And I just need to let you know.  
_

_**-David Cook, Heroes.**_

_-_

After finishing the remains of the wonderfully-prepared meal by the currently-absent chef, Rinoa pulled out her chair and picked up her plate and utensils to put in the dishwasher. She would have taken Squall's too, but he wasn't quite done. She'd have to make a second trip for him.

"You don't have to do that. I'll put them all away later." he said as she was passing by. She turned to face him and set what she had on the corner of the table.

"The least I can do is put these away in the dishwasher. You had to clean up earlier."

"No, that's the thing. Our dishwasher's broken. Something's jammed and the door won't open. I have to hand-wash everything later."

"Oh ho, thought you'd let that one slip past me, huh?"

"You came here as a guest, you're not supposed to be put to work."

"Yeah, but that's for normal guests. Girlfriends are supposed to help her boyfriend's parents when it comes to stuff like that and vice-versa. It's like a test."

"Rinoa, neither of them is here. I'm not going to make you do that."

"I still want to help though."

"It's fine Rinoa, honestly."

"Alright then." she said with an overly-dramatized sigh. "I guess I'll have to kill time by looking at some _albums_ while you're doing dishes. Who knows? Maybe I'll find a few _embarrassing _bathtub photos."

Squall gave her a smug look. "Nice try, but you won't be able to find them by the time I'm done."

"I guess I just need a _head_ _start_ then."

She started tip-toeing away with a huge smile on her face, just waiting for him to reconsider and try to catch her. Once she was out of the room however, he still hadn't moved an inch. Figuring that there wasn't enough incentive to go after her, she speed-walked down the hallway and loudly scurried up to the top of the stairs. When that still wasn't enough, judging by the lack of noise, she walked down the hallway, passed a bathroom on the left, followed the rightward bend, passed two doors and eventually went into the only room with its door open at the end of the corridor. Standing smack-dab in the middle of the room, keeping the door open, she took a deep breath, preparing herself for what she was about to belt out next.

"_**Oh wow, would you look at that! I found an album already! I think I'm going to look through it!**_**"**

…And only the imaginary crickets heard her.

But it didn't really matter because there _really _was an album on a nearby dresser — a mint-green one with accentuating pale yellow stripes and the title _'Family Photos'_ emblazoned on the cover to be exact. After lifting the cover and seeing that the first six plastic slots were all filled with pictures of a newborn baby in a hospital with a full head of chocolate-brown hair, it was obvious that it was his.

Boy, for someone who was so certain that she wasn't going to find an album; he sure hadn't done his homework, especially since he had even said that there was a likely chance that at least one of them was going pull out some baby photos.

As ironic as the situation was, Rinoa knew that it wouldn't be right to look at them without any permission so she closed the cover and quietly walked out of the room. After walking past the winding corridor and descending the stairs, she could hear the tap running in the kitchen from the base of the stairs. She quietly walked a little further, poked her head into the kitchen and saw that he had his back turned, watching the hot water cascade into the sink and the foam rise from the dishwashing liquid, the telltale evidence of their meal piled to the right of the sink. There was a fair deal of plates, pots, dishes and cutlery stacked on the side.

She walked up to his back and, without any rational reason whatsoever; while standing on the tips of her toes, she looped her arms around his neck.

"Guess what I found." she teased.

She could feel him shrug. "…The imaginary photo album you were shouting about?"

"Nope. A real one."

"…_Right._"

"No really, I did. The only page I looked at had pictures of you in the hospital. You already had a full head of hair."

"I'm still not convinced. Anyone could have guessed that."

"There's a photo where Ellone's holding you on your mother's hospital bed with an ear-to-ear smile on her face. You can see your father wearing khaki shorts and a pale-green shirt, talking to a dark brown-haired lady in an orange floral-print dress in the background."

This statement got his attention; she could feel his hands undoing her interweaved fingers and afterwards, she could see the front of his body clearly; he'd turned around. He had shut off the tap before answering her though.

"…Where did you find this?"

"In the very last room in the upstairs hallway, it was the only room with an open door. I saw a mint-green and pale yellow striped album on top of a dresser but I only lifted the cover because it said '_Family Photos_' on it. I didn't move it."

He sighed. "…I can't believe you found that."

"Well…to honest, I was just trying to tease you earlier. But I guess the album ending up finding _me_ instead." she admitted. "But for what it's worth, you were a cute newborn."

He turned back around and started running the water again, staring at the sink.

"Hey…you're deflecting my compliment!"

He looked back at her. "…There's no reason to comment on what you said Rinoa."

"Actually…what you're supposed to do is say thanks and look all awkward about it."

He sighed. "…Thanks, I guess."

"There you go. Now was that so hard to do?"

"Yes, it was." he sarcastically replied. She lightly punched him in the arm.

"Quiet, you." she light-heartedly chided. "Move over. I'll dry, you wash."

He gave her a look. "…I hope you know that you're being stubborn."

Rinoa smiled. "If it'll get you to not do this all by yourself, then it'll be worth it."

He moved over and turned off the tap; the height of the foam was almost level with the top of the sink. After dunking in as much as he could fit into the water, he used a nearby scrub to remove all of the stuck-on bits, took each individual item that he cleaned from the water and placed it into the other side of the sink's divide for Rinoa to rinse off the suds and dry them. This process was mostly done in silence.

Then, seemingly out nowhere, Squall broke that aforementioned stillness.

"…My mom must really like you."

Rinoa placed the last dish she had dried on the counter and looked at him. He'd stopped washing too.

"What makes you say that? Does it have to do with me finding an album out in the open?"

"That particular album you found…it's normally at my grandmother's house."

Rinoa blinked. "…So you're saying that it's not even one of the seven albums you were talking about?"

"Yeah. This is the one my grandparents had for the photos my parents gave them or the ones they took themselves. It has less baby photos but it spans further than the ones in the seven here."

"Oh…wow. How far does it go up to?"

"I'm almost certain that it goes up to the day I turned eighteen." he answered. Rinoa's eyes widened.

"It doesn't have…what happened, does it?"

"That…would be a lot for a relatively-new girlfriend to learn through a photo album. I think my mother would have taken out any photos alluding to that at my grandmother's house."

Rinoa blinked. Questions were filling up the empty space in her brain by the second. "So…your grandma knows you had a baby? ...And they took photos?"

He tersely nodded. "My grandmother and mother know because they were there at the time when I'd received the call from the hospital. Ellone…suspects something happened but she isn't sure and my father has no clue altogether. He was out of town for the entire week." he began to explain. "And as much as I objected to it…my grandmother took a photo of her and another of the both of us. I was so out of it that day, I didn't even realize that she'd taken it."

Rinoa bit her lip. "…If I were in that situation, Hyne, I wouldn't know what I'd do with those photos or how angry I'd be for those being taken."

"I wasn't happy then, but...looking back, I can't blame my grandmother for taking it. ...She was her first great-grandchild."

"And...was that your mom's mom?"

"Yeah. She's the only one left. Both grandparents on my father's side had already passed away before I was born."

"I'm in that situation too for both sides of my family. I never knew any of my grandparents." she commented. "I don't have any cousins either. My mom's an only child and my two uncles on my father's side never had any kids. You have cousins on your dad's side, right?"

He nodded. "I've got two."

Remembering something from quite awhile ago, Rinoa decided to play psychic for kicks.

"-And both of them are girls." she added.

He gave her a look. Bingo. "...You're going to have to explain how you knew that."

"I'm psychic."

"No, really. I know that it wasn't a lucky guess because if it was, you wouldn't have said that so fast."

"Alright. The day you passed out because of your flu, Dr. Kadowaki wanted me to stay and wait for your mom in case there were questions I could answer since I was with you before. After your mom finally came and asked how come you got sick and she didn't, Dr. Kadowaki asked if you were anywhere she hasn't. She brought up that you went to visit your sister one more time without her but thought it didn't matter because you'd been on that floor before. Dr. Kadowaki suggested that you might have caught it if you visited messier floors like maternity or pediatrics but your mom dismissed that idea by saying, 'Unless if one of my husband's nieces had a baby that I didn't know about, I don't think it's likely,' or something like that."

"...And you figured it out from that and what I said?"

"Pretty much."

When he rolled his eyes, Rinoa laughed a little. "Consider it payback for being so stubborn about wanting to do the dishes by yourself." she reasoned before shifting gears. "But...I think we somehow got off-topic here."

"Hm?"

"You said that your mom must like me because of the album is usually at your grandma's place." she clarified. "...Could you explain why that would make you think that your mom really likes me? I'm not sure I understand the logic here, especially since I haven't really done anything extraordinary during the times I was here before."

"The seven albums' worth of pictures is all that my family has. They don't have any pictures of me after I turned four since the albums with more recent photos of me were lost when we moved into this house two years ago. My mother's been trying to get my grandmother to loan her album to scan the photos we didn't have but she's been so reluctant that she stopped trying to get it a while ago."

"...So to have it here is a big deal?"

He nodded. "Yeah. My grandmother can be the most stubborn person on the planet once she's made up her mind. To get it from her after the things I've been told...it'd be nothing short of a miracle."

"I guess that would be something_—_" Rinoa abruptly stopped in mid-sentence, replacing her normal tone for one of the muffled variety. "Hyne...she would have done that for nothing if we hadn't decided to make this act into something real."

"...Don't beat yourself over it. My mother would have gotten the album sooner or later to scan the photos. If anything you helped her do that."

"That makes sense but...it doesn't exactly make me feel any better about it. Not when I still don't even know what I did so for her to go through this much effort for me anyway."

"-You put up with me. That's reason enough."

She smirked. "You're not _that_ hard to deal with. I just needed to pick my battles right. I mean, I _was_ able to convince you to let me help with the dishes, right?"

"Not really...I was just too exhausted to argue with you."

"Hey, don't take that away from me, I won fair and square."

"_Right..." _he sarcastically drawled, "I didn't know that '_Move over. I'll dry, you wash,_' was an _extremely_ convincing argument."

She rolled her eyes and gave him an equally-sardonic reply. "...Sometimes I wonder why I like you."

He shrugged. "...I have no idea either. You'll have to fill me in on that reason someday."

"How about...we save time and just assume that we were both temporarily insane?" she joshed.

He shrugged again. "Might as well."

Rinoa smirked at this before changing the subject altogether as they resumed their respective tasks of washing and drying.

"So...are you exhausted enough to not object to letting me see your grandma's album?"

He turned to look at her. "It's fine if you look at it. Just...don't giggle or say any off-colour comments if there happens to be any weird pictures. I don't know what's in this album exactly."

"Sure, that's not a problem, but I have to ask a small question."

"Alright."

"If you weren't happy about the possibility of your parents bringing out baby pictures before, why weren't you so against me seeing this other album?"

"I'm only letting you look at it because my parents aren't here to shower you in embarrassing comments about the photos."

"Hyne, I know what you mean." she agreed. "My mom goes overboard like that too...although I'm not so sure you'll ever get to see her like that because of the misunde_r_—"

She was abruptly cut off by the distinct chime of her cell phone in her pocket. Setting down the dish and towel she had in her hands, she fished for the phone and gestured to Squall to wait a moment while she took the call in another corner of the kitchen.

The clock she happened to see on the opposite side of the room indicated that it was a little past seven and with that in mind; she had a pretty good idea of who was calling.

"Hello?" she answered.

"_Rinoa, it's Mom. Are you doing anything at the moment?_"

'_Oops, never mind. I guess it's not Adrienne.'_

"I was just helping with the dishes. Do you need me home for something?"

"_No, I just found something and I think an apology's in order._"

Rinoa's heart froze. What in Hyne's name did she find? Or better yet, why didn't she wait until she got home to chew her out?

'_Oh well_,' she mused, '_better bite the bullet.'_

"Um...I'd apologize but I'm not quite sure what you're referring to."

Out of nowhere, she heard a small laugh. _Okay.._.why was the fact that she didn't know what she was apologizing for funny?

"_Rinoa, I meant that __**I**__ have something to apologize for._" she clarified.

"Ohh..."

"_I was emptying out the garbage in the kitchen for tomorrow's pick-up and the bag's bottom had a tear in it so some trash came out._" she started to explain. "_I saw the mug shards with hot chocolate stains and specks of blood. I also saw some more hot chocolate and blood stains on the clothes in your hamper._"

The lightbulb in Rinoa's head went off. "...So...you believe me now?"

"_Yes. That's what I wanted to apologize for._" she answered. "_The reason I called now instead of later was so you could pass my apology to Squall before I forget._"

"Alright. I will. I'll see you later. Bye."

"_Bye._"

_Click._

After putting away the phone again, she turned to face Squall, who had clearly immersed himself in the task of dishwashing while she was talking, judging by the large sudsy stack of pots and dishes on her side of the sink. He had stopped to look at her after the click of her phone however.

"...What's with the smile?" he asked.

"I guess you might be hearing my mom go overboard sometime in the future. She found my stained clothes and mug shards from last Tuesday so she believes me now."

"That's good but...I don't think completely erase what she saw that day."

"Just take it as a small victory then. But something tells me that she's probably not _that_ mad if she told me that she called now so that I could relay the message that she's sorry about what she thought happened right away. I figure that as long as she doesn't randomly catch us both half-naked we're good for now."

"Nice theory." he dryly replied. "I'll keep that in mind."

Rinoa smirked at his comment, the last part of it in particular. If it had been any other guy who'd said that, she would have automatically assumed that it implied that they were already picturing her half, or even fully, naked. _Then again,_ she started to think,_ he still is a guy in spite of what he's like so it would be faulty logic to assume that whole-heartedly_.

Keeping that thought at bay, she picked up the dish towel and started drying again, shaking her head ever so slightly.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After another five minutes' worth of drying and another two for running up and down stairs, Rinoa was finally sitting on the living room couch, poring over the many photographs at her disposal. Though Squall was beside her, he remained quiet as he simply watched her look at photos, providing no commentary whatsoever. After she finished the photos of his first birthday, she looked back at him with a smile. He had been sitting beside her on her left.

"It looks like you're safe." she told him. "No tub photos anywhere."

He rubbed his eyes for a moment before answering. "Good."

This made Rinoa smile even more. "You know...I think I passed a photo where you had the same tired look on your face. Hyne, I didn't know it was possible for someone to be instantly recognizable as a baby."

"It's my album...that's probably why you automatically know that the baby is me." he pointed out, sounding very tired.

"No, there could have been other babies in here. Your cousins could have been the same age."

He arched a brow. "You're forgetting that they're both girls."

"No, I know but some babies can look like they're from the opposite sex if you put gender-neutral clothes on them."

"...So you're insinuating that I could have easily looked like a girl?"

'_Hyne, I don't think I have the willpower to let this comment slide...'_

"Well...you _do_ look like your mom."

He sighed. "...How did we even get on this topic?"

"I wish I knew. But if it's any consolation," she started with a mischievous grin, "-you don't look like a girl now."

"Right...and I suppose I would look like one if you put me in a dress?"

Rinoa didn't know what to do other than blink at that comment.

"Hyne, you must be tired to say something like that. But to answer your question, no, you wouldn't look like a girl in a dress. You have no chest and no girl has muscles like that." she added, poking his bicep for emphasis.

He rubbed his eyes again. "Sorry...it's not often where I get overtired like this."

"I'll say, I was surprised to see you all tired in the hallway. That class must have been insanely hard if you've never broken a sweat in Phys Ed." she commented. "But if you don't mind me asking, what are you taking it for anyway?"

"...I honestly don't know."

"Oh, okay_._ I thought that you needed it for something because you said that Garden didn't offer it last year."

"Rinoa...I was lying to you back then." he admitted. "I only came back because I failed Lit the year before. I just retook everything else to try to get better grades for my transcript. These two classes are just to keep my options open in case if I wanted to take the SeeD program here."

"I see. So...with the other stuff you were retaking other than Lit; what were you averaging before?"

"Somewhere around the mid seventies to low eighties." he answered. "I'm not as smart as you might think I am."

"No, I still think you are even if you're the type who has to study their butt off. I know that I would have had a much lower mark in history if it wasn't for you being my partner so it's got to mean something."

"Rinoa...if you don't mind, I'm not exactly in the mood to talk about school."

"Sure, that's fine, I understand. I'll just look through the rest of the photos so you don't have to say anything. Sound good?"

After he half-heartedly nodded, she resumed flipping through the pages. Now she was at the toddler era of photos judging by the photographed moments of him walking, looking like he was talking or by the amount of teeth he seemed to have gained in the snapshots. There was one especially-darling photo where he looked almost dazed in Raine's arms, like the flash camera flash had caught him completely off-guard. The shot was relatively close-range so she could make out his definitive features as a toddler; the big blue eyes, semi-serious stare, the mop of brown hair...the list went on and no matter how many photos where she had seen of him being so instantly recognizable to the person he looked like today, it still never ceased to amaze her. Lacking the self-control not to comment on that again, she turned to face him once more.

What she hadn't expected that he already lost the battle that she hadn't known about to keep his eyes open as she saw that he was slumped over, eyes clearly shut. Rinoa bit the inside of her lip in contemplation, not only to figure out if she should rouse him but to also figure out if she should leave. Her original plan was to wait for Raine and Laguna to make sure the latter was okay and to thank the former for the meal she'd left them, but now, she wasn't so sure with Squall falling asleep on her like this. It was kind of awkward to a point.

Following a few minutes of mulling this over, she decided that she would continue to pore through the album and leave when Raine and Laguna showed up or if Squall wasn't awake by the time she was done. In which case, she would wake him up to tell him so before she did. Feeling like this was a solid plan, she leisurely continued through the pictures again.

As she passed more and more of the pages, Squall was looking more and more like the person he was today, his features reflecting more on the shy and introverted aspects of his personality based on the looks he gave the photo-taker, whoever that was, as he seemed to be nearing his teenage years. Flicking through some more pages, she noticed that he'd gone through some major changes in a later six-photo set found on the same side of a page.

In combination with the photos she'd previously seen in the online yearbook and the fact that the ratio of pages on her left versus her right was becoming ridiculously biased towards the left, she guessed that this particular set spanned the year he turned eighteen. The first two looked like they were taken in the winter since the photos were back-to-back candid shots of Squall taking off a winter coat with snow on covering everything. He looked very wiry in the second one where the jacket was off altogether, not to mention, a good deal shorter than when she met him in October.

The next two were non-candid shots with Ellone and the change between the first two and the third and fourth photos was significant. He looked just about like he did now, the difference between the two pairs of photos was that he'd filled out considerably with what looked to be added muscle and gained some height. But the biggest change that Rinoa found happened to be in the last two photos on the page and, unbeknownst to her before this moment, the last two in the entire album. The other pages past this were all unused.

...And apparently Raine had forgotten to omit certain photos after all.

The last two were undeniably of Squall and Alexandra.

Once that fact had sunk into her head, Rinoa shut the album immediately and jostled Squall's right shoulder to wake him up. Surprisingly enough, for someone who was out cold for a good 45 minutes, it didn't take long for her to get him to open his eyes again. He rubbed his eyes before looking at her however.

"_...Did I fall asleep?_" he groggily asked, trying to stifle a yawn at the same time.

Rinoa nodded. "Yeah, you did for a good 45 minutes. Anyway," she started, "I was just looking through the photos and I found something I had to look away from. I think it's something you should look at."

"...If it's a bathtub photo, I don't want to see it."

"No, no. It's...not." She picked up the album again and quickly flipped through it until she got to the very last page and purposely put it on a specific angle on his lap so that it was out of range of her vision. "...Your mom must have forgotten to take the last two out."

Right after her explanation, she turned the other way on the couch to give him a little privacy with the photos. What she wasn't counting on was hearing his voice so soon.

"...You don't have to turn away from me, it's alright." Rinoa turned back around as if it was a request from him. When she locked eyes with him again, he continued. "You already know what's happened. I'm not going to burn you at the stake for accidentally coming across this. I have no problems if you look at those last two photos."

Rinoa gave him a skeptical look. "...Really?"

"It's better to look at them now rather than to leave them in here and save it for when we'll eventually look at the album with my parents." he dryly replied.

She tentatively took the album back into her own lap, perusing the last two photos carefully. A good moment had passed before Rinoa looked back at him.

"I...like the first picture of her best." she shyly told him, closing the album and setting aside on the empty side of the couch. "She looks like a cute little chicobo in your arms."

"...Being little was an understatement." After that, he changed the subject. "If you happen to be waiting for my parents, I'm not sure if they'll be here anytime soon."

Casting her previous plan aside, she shook her head. "No, it's fine. I don't have anything to do tonight and my mom isn't expecting me home until later any_w_—"

All of a sudden, Rinoa found herself cutting her own sentence short as she stifled a yawn out of the blue, prompting Squall to follow suit.

"_Mm_...maybe I should go after all. I think I'm making you even more tired." she semi-joshed.

"If you wanted to stay...I'll be fine. I just need more caffeine."

"I think we need a nap. You'll just crash harder if you caffeinate yourself."

Squall arched a brow. "...You said _'_I think _we _need a nap,' not 'I think _you_ need a nap.'"

Rinoa froze a little. Had that been a subconscious slip of the tongue or just a random fumble of words?

'_Don't lie to yourself,_' her mind chided, '_you clearly meant that. It's okay. The worst he could do is say no. Go ahead, tell him._'

"I know." she said. "I was kind of thinking that we could take a nap together."

"I'm not sure about that. What if my parents come around?"

Oddly enough, it didn't take long for her to think of an excuse. "Then...we can say that we nodded off while we were waiting for them."

As she saw him mentally weigh the pros and cons of this idea extensively after nodding at her suggestion, she felt the need to push him down so his back would be flush with the cushions and his head would be against the armrest. She immediately sidled herself beside him after that. When she saw the bemused look on his face, she had to smirk.

"You sir, think too much." she whispered. "If you want this, don't think, just do."

Surprisingly enough, he listened to her advice and allowed himself to close his eyes fall asleep with her close by. Enjoying the serene warmth he brought, Rinoa couldn't help but do the same. When Raine came back from the hospital hours later with Laguna, she couldn't bear the thought of waking them up. Instead, the older woman placed a blanket over them and a call was made on the raven-haired girl's behalf.

It wasn't until Rinoa woke up to see the rays of sunlight dancing off of Squall's face and feel the blanket's soft caress that she realized that she hadn't gone home last night. In spite of the potential trouble she'd gotten herself into, all of it had seemingly melted away when she noticed a hint of a smile on the corners of his lips as he slept.

How he never ceased to amaze her was beyond her comprehension.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments - **Sorry about the three and a half week delay. I had a lot of end of term projects and graded assignments in November and exams now that I'm in December. Luckily, they're really spaced out so it's not like I'm pulling my hair out or anything. I got another on Friday and the last one is on Monday (I've already done two) so it shouldn't be too much of a wait 'til the next one. I'm not guaranteeing anything, but the possibility is there.

_Have a nice day! :D_

_-Emerald-Latias _


	47. Chapter XLVI – Tuesday Morning

**Author's Notes -** _Mm._..nothing much to say other than enjoy the slight insanity that this chapter will bring. :D

Oh, and as of 12/12/08, this fic is the 11th longest overall and 7th out of the uncompleted fics so it looks like I've been gaining some ground here! Hehe.

EDIT - I goofed up on those numbers above me, I forgot to switch the rating to include all stories. Right now, including this chapter, this is 19th longest overall and 10th out of the uncompleted fics. Sorry about that!

_(There went my sense of accomplishment...ugh.)_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XLVI – Tuesday Morning**

-

_All the stars are out tonight,  
It feels as though I might,  
Make some sense out of this madness,  
Will it turn out right?  
Who's to say where the wind will blow?  
_

_**-Lifehouse, Chapter One.**_

-

Still lying sideways on the couch, Rinoa decided to close her eyes again. Not because she necessarily wanted to go back asleep but because she wasn't sure what to do now that she was aware of her situation. She figured that if she waited until Squall woke up, he could probably feel out the situation better than she could, given that they were his parents and not hers.

A few moments later, Rinoa was oddly rewarded for her decision to stay on the couch with him. She could hear the sound of footsteps coming from the stairs. It wasn't long before those footsteps seemed to echo closer to the living room's entrance.

"Should we wake them up? It's almost nine."

"No, let them sleep until I've made brea_kfast."_ Raine said; her voice's increasingly quieter tone paired with the sound of more footsteps suggesting that they were walking into the kitchen._ "I'm sure they were up fairly late waiting for us to come back._"

"_Raine, I really feel bad for that. I was looking forward to yesterday's dinner._"

"_It's fine Laguna. It's not every day where you find out something like that. I'm sorry you had to find out that way, I thought Squall would have told you before._"

"_No,_ _I haven't heard him say so much as a sentence to me in the past few months. I guess I know why he was keeping so quiet now." _There was a small pause. _"Raine, does Rinoa know about that if you weren't planning on taking out those photos?_"

"_No, I don't think she does. And I was planning on taking those two out after draining the potatoes anyway—oh dear._"

"_What is it?_"

"_When I put the blanket on them, I saw the album on the other end of the couch. She might have seen them._"

"_I'm sure that if she had, Squall would have told her that she was someone else's. I wouldn't worry too much about it if they're sleeping on the couch like that._"

"_I don't think Squall would have been able to get away with lying though. The look on his face in both photos...anyone with common sense would be able to put the pieces together. I mean, your niece had her little girl around that time too and you still came to the right conclusion even though Allison looked exactly like her."_

"_Hm...maybe you're right Raine. It didn't even cross my mind that she could have been Brianna's daughter." _he mused aloud. _"But I suppose that we'll only find out when they wake up._"

"_I just hope you're right about what you said earlier. She's been doing him a lot of good these past weeks. I've been noticing a difference."_

Almost as if Squall was unwittingly trying to make a point in midst of their conversation, he rolled onto his stomach with his right arm now draped over her body, unconsciously acting as if he was trying to keep her close. With the side of his face less than an inch away from hers and his body lightly brushing against her in certain areas; it took all Rinoa had to keep her eyes closed and her breath rhythmic. She focused on other thoughts to keep her mind occupied and away from the fact that her entire body was like a mini-volcano right now.

Unfortunately, she felt some movement in front of her and heard some more behind her back. Daring to slowly open her eyes, her brown irises were met with a sliver of the cerulean from his right eye. It immediately widened. The next thing she knew, she landed on the floor from his brusque and ungraceful attempt at getting up.

An '_ow_' couldn't even begin to describe what she felt that moment but anything more fitting of the sting wouldn't have been exactly lady-like; she'd landed flat on some of the still only partly-healed cuts on her backside. After opening her eyes however, she could have cared less about how her back ached with a dull throbbing because right now, the look on Squall's face was too out of character to ignore. Looking back at both him and his parents, it was easy to see that he was absolutely mortified by their mere presence.

"There's an explanation for this_-_" he tersely mouthed, "-it's _**not**_ what it looks like."

Rinoa looked back over to Laguna and Raine but said nothing from where she was on the floor. And whether or not it was her imagination acting up, she thought she could see a tiny smirk on Laguna's face. They stewed in silence for a moment or two before anything was said.

"I wish I had a camera right now." the older man mused with a bit of a chuckle. "I think that's the first time I think I saw you blush."

Rinoa looked over at Squall again.

When she saw his face, she couldn't keep her thoughts contained. "My God, you _are_ blushing."

"No, I'm not." he said defensively, looking in her direction now. "I was warm because of you and the blanket."

Rinoa heard some muffled laughs on her right. She swivelled her head to look the other way again. "I know what you meant Squall, but...I think that came out a little wrong."

"Ugh." He covered his eyes with his right palm and shook his head. "..._Kill me now._"

Biting back a small chuckle, Rinoa got up and took about two steps to the couch to peel his hand away from his face. He didn't look too thrilled by her actions, but she could tell that he wasn't completely displeased either.

"I'm pretty sure that your parents know we were waiting for them. Besides," she started with a chuckle, "-making one of us commit homicide is a little extreme, don't you think?"

Out of nowhere, he got off of the couch, walked out of the room and past all three of them to go downstairs. In midst of the clatter of descending the stairs, Rinoa thought she heard something along the lines of,_ "...This is getting too weird."_

After the reality that she was standing in the room alone with his parents had sunk in once she turned around, Rinoa decided to say something before the silence had the chance to speak — that, and twiddle her fingers and aimlessly shuffle her feet, but that just came part and parcel with the talking.

"Um...so you know that we were waiting for you?"

Raine nodded. "Of course we do."

"Okay...just making sure." she mumbled to herself more than to anyone else. "Seeing Squall react that way made me a little less sure about that."

"Squall's...not exactly a morning person." Laguna offered. "He takes awhile to wake up so that might have something to do with it."

Rinoa furrowed her brows. ".._.Really?_ I always got the impression that he was an early riser."

Laguna shook his head. "Nope, Raine's the only early riser in this house and Squall's our night owl. Elle and I are somewhere in between—" After getting a _look_ from his wife, he changed topics quick. "-But in any case, Raine and I would appreciate it if you stayed for breakfast."

"I'd love to, but I think I should go home. My mom's probably worried sick about me since I didn't get the chance to call or anything."

"Actually," Raine chimed in, "I called your house late last night after we came back and explained the situation to your mother so I believe that staying for breakfast won't be a problem. Squall can bring you home after so you can get your things ready for school if you need to."

"Alright. Do you need help in the kitchen for anything?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm perfectly fine. I would appreciate it if you could tell Squall about breakfast though."

Rinoa nodded and went to walk past them when a latent thought sprang from the recesses of her mind and stopped her in her tracks. She was maybe a step away from standing on the top step from the stairs leading to the basement, Raine was two steps from the kitchen and Laguna was already on his way to the dining room when this thought occurred.

"_Um...Raine?_" she meekly said.

The aforementioned woman turned around at the sound of her muffled call._ Maybe it was better that Laguna was further away,_ Rinoa mused.

"Yes?"

Rinoa checked her surroundings as if she was making sure no one was listening in on them and whispered what she said next.

"_I overheard snatches of what you both said before Squall woke up and just so you know..._" She took a small breath to ready herself. "..._I'm alright with the situation from the last two photos._"

The beginnings of a bittersweet smile formed at the corners of Raine's lips.

"_Thank you for understanding._" she whispered back.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

It was only a matter of one knock on his door before he opened it to let her in. Rinoa had to blink. Was he waiting by the door or something? _Probably not,_ she thought, _he would have been fully-dressed if that had been the case._

"I assume they asked you to stay for breakfast?" he asked, pulling on a black long-sleeve shirt at the same time.

She half-heartedly nodded. "Yeah, your mom asked me to tell you that. Apparently she called my mom and it's okay, or so I assume from the impression I got. And um, your mom and dad also know that we were waiting for them."

"Alright. That's good." After hearing him say that, she had a bit of a grin on her face. And sure enough, it didn't go unnoticed for long by him. "Let me guess. They told you something else, didn't they?"

She energetically nodded.

"...Something embarrassing?"

She shook her head. "No, just...something I would have never guessed."

"Like...what?"

Her smirk grew a little wider. "I had no idea that you weren't a morning person."

He gave her an odd look. "...Why did that come up?"

"Because of the way you reacted, I asked them if they knew that we were waiting for them since I wasn't so sure anymore. Your dad told me that you might have done that because you weren't fully awake because you're not a morning person."

"I'm not but I didn't overreact because of that. It's just that I've...never had one of these situations with my parents."

Rinoa tilted her head sideways. "Really? You've never had an-" She paused to bring out the bunny-ear quotations, "-'_awkward parental moment'_ with um...her?"

"No. They didn't know about her."

"..._Oh_." she muttered after the gravity of that sentence hit her. "So, you mean this is the first time your parents had to go through the whole girlfriend song and dance?"

".._.Yeah_." When his voice dropped a little with that one-word answer, Rinoa wasn't sure what to think of it. "Unfortunately, that also came with a '_talk_' and some unwanted '_advice_' from my father too."

Rinoa had to bite her lip. "Oh God."

"Tell me about it. I had to drown him out with a mental chorus of _'I'm not hearing this,' _over and over until he finally shut up."

"No, no, it's not that. I overheard your parents this morning and the reason he got in your mom's way yesterday was because he saw those last two photos in the album and found out about it that way."

With a deep sigh, he tilted his head downward and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"..._Just fucking wonderful._" he cursed before lifting his head again and moving his fingers away from his face. "Don't be surprised if this'll be the most awkward breakfast of your life."

"I can pretend to be sick if it'll help."

"No. I don't think it would. It'd only take you out of the equation and I can't imagine this ending well if it's just me and them." he pointed out. "...Do you have any other ideas?"

"Not sure...Hm...could you...I don't know, pretend like you fell back asleep and I couldn't wake you up? Would that be better?"

"No. They'd still drag me down to breakfast."

"True, but if you pretended to fall back asleep and they had to wake you up again...that'd be an excuse to be a little out of it at the breakfast table, wouldn't it?"

"Alright...I guess I'll have to go with that then. I can't think of anything else." he reluctantly agreed before walking up to his bed and lying down on it stomach-first. Rinoa had to giggle.

"Gee, I had no idea that you were such a method actor." she said light-heartedly.

He unburied his head from the pillow was previously buried in to reply with, "..._This isn't method acting, I'm still tired._"

Without saying a word, Rinoa walked over to his door to close it and twist its lock the other way before doubling back to where he was. She could say without a doubt that she'd caught him off-guard when she nestled herself beside him in his bed. He turned his head to his left to see her mischievous grin and didn't say anything, opting for her to explain herself first. And that she did.

"...What? I'm just as tired as you."

Even with half of his head against the pillow, he still managed to give her a look.

"If this gives my parents the wrong impression because of the locked door, I'm going to get you for that later."

"Squall...I think that they know that you're not stupid enough to have sex with me while they're still in the house."

He sighed again. "Just go to bed Rinoa."

Rinoa giggled. "I guess you don't like it when someone points out the faults in your logic, do you?"

"Like I said before, go to bed Rinoa."

She giggled some more; this boy was even funnier than she gave him credit for.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Yeah, I know that this wasn't really exciting or anything, I just wanted something short and sweet for the holidays.

See you guys around sometime!

_-Emerald-Latias_


	48. Chapter XLVII – Sheets and Pillow Talk

**Author's Notes – **Well, I hope you enjoyed the small update on Christmas Eve. I know it wasn't much, but I figured it would be a nice gesture all the same. Hopefully I'll get into a timelier updating rate now that exams are over. I can't guarantee anything mind you, but it doesn't mean that I won't try.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XLVII – Sheets and Pillow Talk**

-

_The music makes me sway,  
The angels singing say we are alone with you,  
I am alone and they are too with you,  
I'm alive, I'm alive,  
I can feel you all around me,  
Thickening the air I'm breathing,  
Holding on to what I'm feeling,  
Savouring this heart that's healing._

_**-Flyleaf, All Around Me.**_

-

While the novelty of lying down in his bed hadn't worn off in the slightest, time wasn't exactly of the essence. It was also a fickle and conniving thing right now; she knew that she'd been here for roughly ten to fifteen minutes, felt like an eternity had passed in the innocent sanctity of his mattress and realized that she was pushing her luck with the parental factor taken in consideration. Sure, literally hopping in bed with him was a gamble to start with but who would have thought the fruits of her wager were so painfully blissful because she'd have to leave? It wasn't like she was breaking off some passionate lip-locking or the like; it was the fact that she'd have to leave him at his most vulnerable and beautiful moment. He was peacefully sleeping beside her once more, arms intertwined with her form, something he'd consciously done before allowing himself to drift off.

There was something so surreal and serene about falling asleep with him close by, something she couldn't begin to rationalize or figure out for the life of her. But whatever if was, Rinoa felt like she was currently being cheated out of the sensation because she wasn't permitted the luxury of closing her eyes and allowing her other senses to fully take this moment in.

Still lingering in the bed at the moment, she peered down to her rib cage. Back when she first jumped into his bed, he'd rolled back onto his side and his hands instinctively, though hesitantly, found their new place. Branding every inch of her skin they were covering with a profound warmness, they still felt as if they were especially made to rest there. While she was certain that the sweater she was wearing did nothing to pad the flaws of her unnaturally-thin frame, he was considerate enough to provide them with a comfortable silence in lieu of a comment.

And now that was the very peace she was forced to relinquish.

Rinoa reluctantly started to get up by delicately lifting his left hand off of her.

A grumble or two on her own end was all she had to show for her nearly half-a-minute long effort. _I think I'll have to try with a little more force,_ she reckoned.

Once more she tried to no avail, or perhaps, as she was starting to suspect, she was not trying hard enough to provide herself with a convenient excuse to stay here.

She sighed.

_Damn him and his heavy arm, _she half-seriously mused. A hint of a smile was emerging at this point.

"._..They shouldn't take this the wrong way, I think._" Rinoa softly whispered to herself, keeping her eyes on the arm he had on top of her.

Not currently covered by a watch, the hint of black ink on his left wrist caught and held her attention. Whether it was by instinct or insanity, she turned the inside of his left arm outward with her free hand and the '_22-08'_ was there like she knew it would be_._ Rinoa let his arm go back to its original resting place against her frame. His hand felt like it was branding her in another sense now and surely enough; it snowballed into something more — thoughts.

She thought about the two pictures she saw, how he looked in both of them and about what his parents said about anyone with common sense being able to piece the puzzle together. She wondered about what her reaction would have been if she hadn't known about this at all and if none of the crap she'd endured in the past had happened. While it wasn't a pleasant thought, if she was more like her previously-undamaged sixteen-year old self, she might have ended it there to protect her own self-interests.

Then again, truth be told, she might have dated him for all the wrong reasons to begin with in that scenario. All other things aside, from a more shallow perspective, akin to the kind she had at sixteen, she would have tried to nab him on the basis that he was very good-looking, older than she was and because the brooding and moodiness he exhibited at school clearly indicated that he'd make for an interesting challenge. The even more depressing part about that was that she knew that the word 'challenge' was just a polite euphemism for conquest.

She closed her eyes and thought of something she would have never dared to think before, that maybe, just maybe, it was better that she gone through what she had to change her immature and selfish ways. However, another thought countered that one right after. Who was to say she wouldn't have matured by then if she hadn't been admitted?

Rinoa shook her head. There was just too much to ponder there. It was all too much for a Tuesday morning, especially when she should have gotten out of bed by now.

Still looking at the hand wrapped around her torso, she finally started to actually try to move his arm instead of conjuring up excuses to stay. When she'd lifted it off of her completely, Rinoa dipped her feet off of the bed's edge and got up. After turning around, she leaned over to reposition his arms a little so they weren't outstretched towards nothing like her departure made them seem. She would have also tucked him in but they had both been lying on top of the covers instead of beneath them.

When her job was done, she planted a kiss on the side of his face, initially reluctant to move away until reality sunk in and her secret wish had been denied. _He's actually asleep,_ she told herself, _not pretending to be just to surprise you with a kiss on the lips._

With that, she walked towards the door and unlocked it to leave the room. It didn't surprise her that Raine was coming down the stairs as she was coming out of the room however.

"Sorry for not coming out earlier." Rinoa pre-emptively apologized as the older woman reached the base of the stairs. "Squall was asleep when I opened his door and I've been trying to get him to wake up but nothing's working."

Raine stopped walking as soon as she was in front of her and gave her a reassuring look. "It's alright Rinoa; you don't have to make excuses."

Rinoa blinked. "Um...nothing like that happened, he's actually asleep."

The older woman tossed her a wry look. "And were you napping with him after you came into the room?"

The teenager felt a light, rosy blush splash across her features. ".._.Er, yeah._" she mumbled.

"I figured as much from your hair." she added. Rinoa immediately patted down the back of her head only to find a few knots and strands feeling very much out of place. She felt her face feel hotter at this discovery. Thankfully it didn't look like Raine was going to bury her for it with the light smile on her face. "Follow me. I'll teach you how to wake him up if he's ever being difficult like this again."

Slightly dumbfounded by her invitation, Rinoa wordlessly followed her back into the room. Once inside, she stayed by the door while Raine approached her currently-sleeping son in the far left-hand corner of the room. Rinoa watched Raine walk over by the end of the bed where his feet were. With one quick upwards stroke of her index against the bottom of his foot, he recoiled horribly, looking as if someone put a lighter to it. It wasn't long before Rinoa heard a string of muffled and incoherent curse words from Squall when his mother did it again. When it came to actually succeeding in getting him awake, or at least admitting that he was awake, the third time ended up being the charm.

And for some inexplicable reason, Rinoa found it rather amusing to see Squall glare at his mother to no avail as she stood her ground. _Those two are definitely two peas from the same pod, that's for sure_, she thought. When Squall finally got up from the bed however, Raine made him sit him back down.

Before he could get a word in edgewise, she turned in Rinoa's direction. "Rinoa if you could come over here to sit on the bed for a moment, I'd like to have word with you both."

"...Alright." Rinoa agreed, proceeding to discreetly bite the inside of her lip afterwards. The look on Squall's face didn't look too promising and when that was coupled with her own newfound thoughts, Rinoa was ready to take back the notion she had earlier. She just hoped that she hadn't made the wrong decision in telling Raine that she knew about Alexandra. She wasn't quite sure how much embarrassment Squall could take and she didn't want to necessarily find out if she could help it.

Quietly sitting herself down beside him but making a point of not sitting too close or too far, Rinoa took a small breath in the interim, plucking a pillow she'd accidentally sat on from underneath her. Minus the pillow plucking, Squall had done the same. Turning her sights onto her son first, the older woman finally spoke. Rinoa chose to focus her vision on Squall and no one but.

"I don't know if Rinoa has told you this but your father knows about Alexandra and everything relating to what happened." she told him in a calm and even tone.

"...I wasn't aware that you knew that she knows too." he flatly stated, no discernable intonation of anger or embarrassment of any form or variation, simply looking downward.

"Yes. Rinoa told me shortly after you left downstairs because she overheard part of the conversation I had with your father." she answered. "However, since your father doesn't know about that and I'd like to keep it that way."

"So was that why you sat us down right now?" Squall quietly asked. Surprisingly enough, Raine shook her head and turned a little to face them both instead of just her son. Rinoa shifted her sights on Raine now.

"No, I have more than that to say to you both. I'd like to ask you two a favour but before I ask, I'd like to know how much you know of the situation if you don't mind Rinoa."

Rinoa shared a glance with Squall before she even considered opening her mouth. When he reluctantly nodded in non-verbal agreement, the words came rather freely.

"I'm sure that Squall told me everything there is to know a little while back."

Raine blinked. "...You didn't find out because of the two photos?"

"No, it was before." Rinoa plainly answered. "The cousin of um, Iris, had been causing us a lot of trouble in the past few weeks and it got to the point where she kept on hinting at something and her behaviour was getting really odd. Squall..." She paused for a moment to secretly think of something. "...he sat me down told me before she could try to and use it against him. It took awhile to set in but...I'm alright with what happened."

When Raine looked over at Squall, he quietly added to what she had said. "What she said was true but...it wasn't my intention to tell her before dad, it just...happened that way. The girl was extremely damaged by what happened."

The older woman nodded. "I can see why."

"Well, truth be told..." Rinoa bravely interjected, "-she isn't exactly handling this in a very mature manner—"

"-Rinoa, please." Squall cut her off. Now looking at him, she saw that he was looking down at his hands now. "I don't think now's the time to get into this."

"...Sure." She sheepishly nodded, looking back at Raine shortly after, waiting for her to say whatever she had left to say.

"In either case, I don't mean to embarrass either of you with this pre-emptive plea but, if you ever find yourselves in a similar situation in the future...please don't let it get to that point. If it happens...let someone know."

Trying to stay strong for the both of them in this touchy and highly personal discussion, Rinoa mustered the courage to say something back to her. "I know that it's...really hard to talk about something like this, even if it's so far in advance in this situation, but, I'll make sure to remember to uphold what you said in the very unlikely event that something like that happens."

After the last of her words died on her lips, Rinoa could feel the collective thanks from both mother and son — verbally from Raine and from Squall, while she was certain that she saw some gratitude in the sidelong glance she caught out of the corner of her eye.

Soon after, Squall made a feeble attempt at breaking the silence. "...Rinoa said you were making breakfast for all of us?"

Unexpectedly, Raine sighed. "That was the plan, but I think it would be best if you and Rinoa ate what I've made in the kitchen and made your way to school."

Squall arched a brow. "...Did something come up?"

"No, the news of what's happened...it's finally caught up to him. Your father broke down soon after he started setting up the dining room for breakfast. I think it would be best if either of you don't see him right now." Raine explained before turning to Rinoa. "I apologize for making you go through all of this Rinoa. I'll try to reschedule this dinner when this has all simmered down here."

"It's all right." she said, offering a meek smile. "Things happen."

"Alright." Raine started. "I'll be in the laundry room putting things in washing machine so if I don't come upstairs, you two have a good day at school."

Shortly after she left, both teenagers exchanged glances before one of the two cracked. Rinoa just hoped her embrace would soothe his weary soul, if only a little.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments **– Hope you all have a good New Years Eve! Sorry if there are any typos at the moment. I'll fix 'em later since I'm out for the night.

_-Emerald-Latias_

_EDIT (01/01/09) - Fixed the mistakes. :D_


	49. Chapter XLVIII – My Porcelain Doll

**Author's Notes – **Well, a year has just passed us and it looks as if the fifty chapter milestone (minus the prologue – it doesn't count) is comin' up soon with only two more chapters after this one. Sweet. Now this fic will look_ that_ much more imposing to people who haven't been following along by the staggering amount of chapters and words it has. Then people will think I'm more impressive as an author than I really am.

_Coooool._

On a side note, I just realized that I was doing the roman numerals for forty wrong. It's supposed to be XL (ten [X] minus fifty [L] like you would for say four [IV] or nine [IX]), not of XXXX. If you've noticed, I've already fixed that now and any other chapters affected. Neatly enough, two of the chapters with titles that didn't fit before in the bar now do.

Guess it pays to learn something new, huh? ;)

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XLVIII – My Porcelain Doll**

_-_

_As if the wait was not enough,  
And one can only take so much,  
You broke into pieces,  
Seems hopeless now,  
But at least you know,  
The tables can turn around,  
And time will repay you.  
_

_**-Default, All Is Forgiven.**_

_-_

It all happened in a split-second. He wasn't outwardly breaking down but in that very instant, she could see it in his eyes. Those blue eyes of his never lied; he was reeling from what was just said big time. She had to do something about it, even if the only remedy at her disposal was that of the action of encircling him with her two arms. His arms limply stayed at his sides and his whole body was unresponsive to her touch however. Rinoa ended the one-sided embrace.

It wasn't enough.

Shortly after, he looked her in the eye for a moment but he couldn't maintain the eye contact; he'd faltered in his gaze. Rinoa raised his face with her hands so he was looking her straight in the eye. He fought her actions for a little while but, with a little persistence, she eventually won in the end.

"It's normal for him to react that way after hearing something like that. You're not a monster if that's what you're thinking."

He pushed her hands away and summoned the nerve to properly look her in the eye on his own.

"—You don't have to justify everything so I feel better about myself, alright?" he mildly snapped, "It's just life, I'll deal with it one thing at a time — I got myself into this mess before you came into the picture and I'll get through the other consequences it brings."

"Sorry...I just wanted to help a little." she quietly apologized, getting up from the bed seconds after. "I'll be upstairs having a bit of breakfast. I'd appreciate it if you joined me whenever you're able to, okay?"

With a reluctant nod, Squall acknowledged her small request but did not follow her when she was walking to the door. She stopped for a second to look back but still found herself reaching for the doorknob and letting herself out all the same.

_Give him his space, _she'd mentally scolded herself, _you wouldn't like it if someone was badgering you so why do you expect anything different in his case?_

Once she was on the other side of his door, shut and everything, Rinoa felt a small pang inside of her stomach. She wasn't really hungry right now but she still vowed to make good on what she'd said — whether she wanted to or not.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After drudging down the hallway and up the stairs, Rinoa could start to hear the normally-jovial man quietly snivelling from where she'd been standing, at the top of the six-step set of stairs, not even inside the kitchen yet. Walking to the aforementioned room, Rinoa hadn't even had the chance to see what Raine had prepared for them before realizing that it would be a bad idea to eat here. A headache was starting to brew inside of her temples.

While the amplification was minimal, if Squall's response to her well-intentioned gesture was as touchy as it was, it would be foolish to assume that he'd perfectly alright to stand here to eat. Hell, she knew that she'd feel like ultra-crap if the roles were reversed and she was dealing with hearing her mom react to the late news from afar—

_Hm...maybe I could bring breakfast down to him, _Rinoa quickly thought,_ then he wouldn't have to hear anything...perf—_

Before she even had the chance to even finish her thought, she saw her boyfriend walk through the kitchen's open entranceway.

Too late.

"Hey..." she mumbled; the insides of her skull thumping ever so slightly, "-glad to see you came up."

"...There's not really any use in coming up late." he listlessly shrugged while he was approaching her, grabbing some dishes from the cupboard on her right. Rinoa moved aside quickly when it looked like he was going for the cutlery drawer behind her.

"True. I'd hate to see what that teacher would make you do if you were late to that crazy gym class..." she added. "Hm...I'd think that they'd probably make me clean dishes in cooking class if I was late. But uh...who knows? Maybe they'd make me alphabetize recipe cards or something."

Squall set down the dishes and cutlery he had in his hands; he hadn't gotten as far as grabbing a few knives and forks by the time his perplexed gaze met with her own.

"Did...something happen?" he asked confusedly.

"Um...no. Why do you er...um, ask?"

"You sounded like you're on speed so I assume there's a reason for that." he deadpanned. Rinoa's head felt like it was on fire. A short while had passed before she answered and an embarrassed sigh escaped in the meantime.

"Listen closely...you'll hear why." she said rather quietly, not feeling the greatest at that moment as she was fidgeting with her fingers behind her back. When Rinoa was confident enough to assume that he'd heard something, she continued. "...Before you came up, I was thinking of filling up our plates and taking it downstairs to your room."

"Yeah...that'd be a good idea." he listlessly agreed, giving her a plate and a set of utensils shortly thereafter.

Just as the plate was within her grip, Rinoa wasn't so sure of herself anymore. The weight of the plate felt strangely heavy in her hands and then she stumbled a little bit. From prior experiences, neither occurrence was a good sign. Just as Squall was waiting for her to put something on her plate between the pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon his mother had prepared for them, she put her plate on the counter, insisting that he went first. He stayed so motionless in the next few moments that she couldn't help but notice how grey his eyes seemed at that moment — that, and everything else in her line of vision.

_No, not this again, _she mentally pleaded, her thoughts getting more fragmented.

Without sparing any time whatsoever, Rinoa walked over to the nearest chair by the kitchen's entrance and firmly sat down on it. Placing her elbows on her knees, she kept her head propped up by both hands. It was only a matter of time before she heard the soft, cold echo of footsteps. In spite of this, Rinoa waited for a moment before looking up at him.

"_...I'm sorry. My useless body...it's been doing this for the past while._" she apologized, her words laced with self-loathing. Her head dipped once more. "_I should be fine after breakfast_._ I just need to...eat something._"

Rinoa heard some more footsteps along with a medley of other generic noises before he quietly said her name under his breath, coaxing her to look up. He handed her a tall plastic glass with what looked like orange juice. There was even a long red and white striped straw in the cup to boot.

"Drink that before we go downstairs." he instructed. "I'll fill our plates while you finish."

She daintily pinched the straw to bring it to her lips. While it wasn't food, Rinoa could definitely feel the colour come back to her cheeks as the acidic juice sloshed throughout her insides, occupying the empty space in her stomach. After three-quarters of the cup's contents were downed, she felt good enough to stand. Walking over to the counter beside the stovetop where he was at, she leisurely sipped at her juice while taking a peek at what he was doing. He must have seen her through the corner of his eye all along because he turned to look at her in no time flat once she was close enough. She stopped drinking through the straw once she caught his eye.

"...You still have some left." he mentioned. She lowered her lips onto the straw and took a long swig to finish what was left. Shortly after, the cup was set aside in the sink, it was no longer the focal point of dialogue anymore. "That...was a close call."

"_Yeah, I suppose it was_." she mumbled. "_Let's just...go downstairs now_."

Thankfully he caught the cue and handed her a full plate with a little bit of everything. Her stomach did a full somersault. Did he forget that she didn't have a gruelling gym class to burn it all off?

_No, _she mentally reprimanded herself, _you need to get healthy again - for his sake._

She grabbed a fork and knife from him soon after and let him lead the way downstairs once he had the maple syrup in his free hand for the pancakes.

"So we're going to pull up a few chairs and eat this on the table or desk in your room?" she asked, following directly behind him. They were out of the kitchen by the time he had the opportunity to open his mouth.

"No, there are too many papers left on both from studying last week and I'm not really in the mood to pick it all up later. Might as well just eat on my bed." he answered. Obviously because she was out of his vision, he couldn't see her eyes widen.

"Um...Squall?" At the foot of his door, Squall turned around on the dime to face her. He didn't say anything, just caught her eyes with a bewildered look on his face. Rinoa sighed. "I'm pretty sure I'll end up staining your sheets."

He arched his brow.

"...I'm a bit of a messy eater." she awkwardly elaborated, her tone almost making her sentence seem like a question rather than a statement.

"_That's_...not a problem." he said coolly, sidestepping a little bit so she could open the door with her free hand.

Walking by him, Rinoa opened the door but let her hand linger on the knob for a moment before opening it. A small giggle escaped as she walked into the room.

Once she carefully sat down with her plate and he nudged the door shut with his foot, Rinoa must have had some kind of look on her face or something because it she noticed one on his face from across the room.

"...Hey, is something up? I don't think I made a mess already." she half-joshed.

By the time she had posed her semi-serious question, he was already by her side, temporarily setting down the syrup on the floor between their feet. "I didn't know what you were laughing at earlier." he frankly explained.

"...And you're curious about that?"

Pause. "...A little."

"..._Fair enough._" she added, purposely drawing out her syllables. He arched a brow again. "What?"

"You're looking at me as if I grew an extra head." he deadpanned.

"Oh. Didn't mean to." she coyly responded, focusing her attention onto the utensils in her hand and on a fool-proof strategy plan to avoid a greasy, hot mess on his bed shortly after.

_Ugh, awkwardly leaning down like this isn't going to help me any, _she mentally griped.

"If you were laughing because this was a dumb idea, you can just tell me." she heard him say beside her. Rinoa put the battle plan in her head on hold for now and looked to her side.

"That's not why I was laughing." she plainly told him. "I was laughing because I thought that your mind went to the gutter when I said that I might stain your sheets. Ridiculous thought, huh?"

He didn't say anything back. _Oops._

"..._You know_," Rinoa began to comment, turning her attention to the plate again for a moment, "I keep on forgetting that you're—_we're_ only teenagers sometimes."

"I...could say the same."

After this, Rinoa set her plate on the floor, far out of potential kicking range. This caught his attention; he stopped whatever effort he was putting into putting something on his fork.

"Do you just want to...eat on the floor?" she hesitantly asked.

".._.Yeah._" he said, finally admitting that he shared her unspoken sentiment. "-Rinoa?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll move some papers around so we can eat at the desk."

"Thanks." There was a slight pause. "Hey...Squall?"

"Hm?"

"I still can't believe you thought I meant what I said _that_ way."

"...It wasn't intentional. Regardless," he started to argue, "-as screwed up as everything was, I'm still a teenager like you pointed out yourself."

While she coolly smirked on the outside, Rinoa couldn't help but warmly smile on the inside — his choice of verb tense held a fair bit of promise.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Sorry for making you guys wait so long and for so little. I have to admit that I'm a little blocked and that this was the best I could do under the given circumstances — I'm on a four-month co-op away from home and I just come home so tired that it's hard to get work done. Next chapter will definitely be in Garden (or at least somewhere other than Squall's house) but I'm not sure if I'll skip a couple of days. I'll play it by ear and see what works. Hopefully, it'll be a hell of a lot more eventful.

_-Emerald-Latias_


	50. Chapter XLIX – Torn

**Author's Notes – **Whew, with that chapter out of my system, I feel a lot better now. I don't know what it was but I wasn't very motivated to do it because it was directly continuing from the previous and I didn't exactly have a lot of freedom to write whatever because I felt that there was something more to explore in that setting so I couldn't skip ahead.

Now's a different story though. I'm going be jumping ahead from the Tuesday morning to next Monday in the morning.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter XLIX – Torn**

-

_There's nothing ever wrong, but nothing's ever right,  
Such a cruel contradiction,  
I know I cross the lines - it's not easy to define,  
I'm born to indecision,  
There's always something new some path I'm supposed to choose,  
With no particular rhyme or reason.  
_

_**-Shinedown, Burning Bright.**_

-

"Decide to take up some morning classes Rinoa?" a jovial Adrienne asked once the other teenager deposited herself beside her on the bus. Rinoa had to shake her head.

"Unfortunately, no," she mock-lamented, "Squall's got a badminton tournament today and both of my parents are working so I have to take the bus or else I won't have a way to get to school."

"Ah, that explains it. Well, at least you'll be in good company between Ivy and myself."

"I'm so glad you guys have alternating morning spares." Rinoa sighed in relief. "I would have started to worry about what I'd do all morning since I foolishly did my homework on Friday night."

"Rinoa Caraway-Heartilly doing homework on a Friday night?" the other teenager mock-gasped, "-there'd better be a perfectly logical yet weird reason for that."

"Oh, trust me. There is." she grinned. "I was planning on sleeping in longer than usual so I could watch this show late at night on Sunday."

"Rinoa..."

The raven-haired girl looked at her reproachfully. "...Something tells me that I don't want to hear what you're about to say."

Adrienne continued as if she'd heard nothing at all from her friend. "...I don't quite believe you here, not today."

Rinoa kept the reproachful look on her face frozen on her features. "What makes today so important? It's just another boring Monday like the rest of them."

"The date is what's important, not the day." Adrienne continued. "You know it's the fourteenth, right?"

It hit her right then and there.

"..._We didn't do that, if that's what you're wondering._" Rinoa replied in hushed voice.

Adrienne raised a brow. "_So you did do something, just not that?_" her friend whispered back. A pink tinge spread across Rinoa's features.

"That's _not_ what I meant."

Adrienne chuckled a little. "Sorry, I couldn't resist teasing you. Anyway," She paused to stop the lingering chuckles. "-if you don't have any plans, me and Ivy are planning on watching a bunch of romantic comedies at her house tonight so if you're able to come, you're more than welcome."

"Sure, I've got nothing going on."

"Oh_, good_."

Rinoa furtively shifted her eyes. "You...weren't expecting me to say yes right away, did you?" she inquisitively inferred.

The slight blush on her friend's face gave her away.

"Honestly...I was going to be surprised if you said yes period."

"So...why would you ask me if you were positive that I'd say no?"

"Well," she started to explain, "I wasn't a hundred percent sure about that but...I figured it'd be the polite thing to do just in case."

"Well I...honestly don't know if anything's happening tonight. I really doubt that I'll do anything with Squall because he'll probably be too tired after that tournament to go out."

"I wouldn't put him out for the count so fast Rinoa. From what I've seen and what you've told me, I doubt he'll be tired after today. And even that's assuming he makes it far in tournament."

In spite of herself, Rinoa tossed her friend a mild glare for that last comment. "If he doesn't make it past semi-finals I'm demanding drug tests from his opponents." she semi-seriously threatened. Adrienne had a veritable laugh at that.

"I'm sure he'll do well Rin. I volunteered at last year's tournament and the senior teams back then weren't strong in general. If he would have played last year, he would have been a shoo-in for the nationals. And if that's anything to go by, don't be surprised if that's the case this year."

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see." Rinoa concluded, her unserious glare ebbing from her features. "There's no use in guessing about something like this."

"True." Adrienne added. "I still say that you're going to do something tonight."

Rinoa sighed. "I thought we agreed not to guess around anymore."

"Alright then. I _bet_ that you're going to do something tonight."

"Making an empty bet is glorified guessing, you know." she pointed out, tossing her a slight look.

"What if I wagered my lunch money for the week? Can I say it then?" she asked. Rinoa had to smirk at her persistence.

"Sure, but I hope you know that your money is as good as gone." she smartly replied. This earned her a slightly bemused look from her friend.

"Oh...so you _do_ think that he's going to do something with you in spite of what you've said?"

"Nope."

Adrienne rearranged the current expression on her face to give her a strange look. "Okay...you're really confusing me here. I think I need an explanation before my brain starts to implode."

"—You bet that I'd do _something_ Adrienne," she began to clarify, "so as long as I keep breathing at the bare minimum, that's considered _something._"

Her friend rolled her eyes. "That's _not_ what I meant." she replied, reprising her words from earlier. Rinoa laughed a little.

"Payback's not so nice, is it?" she teased.

"Not really."

Just as their banter had died down in favour of simple window gazing, Rinoa tried her best to stifle the budding sigh on her lips.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

When first period had gone by, it had left Rinoa alone and aimlessly wandering; Adrienne had to leave for a Biology class and she had yet to find Ivy fifteen minutes into her rather lackadaisical search, ready to concede to the fact that she was probably somewhere other than Garden with Paul given that it was Valentine's day. When her feet started to hurt a little, she finally called it quits and started to retreat towards the library.

No amount of boredom was worth blisters on her feet and the backaches from lugging around her backpack.

As her legs mindlessly carried her where she wanted to go, Rinoa couldn't help but focus on the cold, hard and slightly eerie click her boots were making on the circular main hallway's floor. It almost couldn't be helped given that outside of the aforementioned clicking, the surrounding area was enveloped in a deathly silence. Another thing that could have been said was that it was odd that she was in such an environment to begin with. There were always clusters of people in the corridors during the times she'd been walking around the corridors during class times last semester so why not now?

The teenager almost had to shake her head at this.

"_...of all of the days to have a tournament._" she mused to herself in a whisper, the corners of her lips beginning to dip south.

"_**Pining away because you couldn't tag along?" **_

Rinoa whipped her body around at breakneck speed. The frown on her face became more prominent.

"—Why the hell are you stalking me?" she hotly countered. This made Nat scoff at her.

"I wasn't '_sneaking up_' on you; it's called walking to the library without loud and clunky boots. I can't help it if you're going in the same direction."

"_Fair enough.._." she mumbled, firmly rooted in place. Nat didn't leave. "Well...I'm letting you go to the library in peace if that's where you need to go. I won't follow you." she civilly continued.

When she still didn't leave, Rinoa sighed and said, "Alright..._**I'll **_be the one who goes in the library then."

It was only when she turned around to leave when Nat finally said something.

"Be honest Rinoa. You're using him as a shield for those other things, aren't you?"

...And it reeled her back like a hook in a fish's mouth. In spite of her better judgement, Rinoa turned around again.

"What in Hyne's name are you talking about?" she said confusedly. Seeing Nat's slight uneasy regard didn't help matters any.

"I know about that guy at Halloween through some people and what happened at Adrienne's party with Tyler." she said flatly.

Rinoa stood there with her heart in a vice and her head ready to pop off.

"_Please.._.stop trying to mess with my head, _okay?_" she told her as her bottom lip threatened to tremble and give her away. Despite her efforts at concealment, it was still to no avail.

"I don't think it can be considered messing with your head when I overheard your _little _conversation with Tyler and Squall when I was getting my homework for the suspension. Acting like a total neurotic spazz in November basically confirmed all those things I was hearing about the Halloween party too."

"...I find the convenient timing very hard to believe." Rinoa spat back, firmly holding her ground though it was crumbling underneath her feet. "And you of all people should learn not to assume things that could very well be a bunch of coincidences."

"Gee, I'm impressed." Nat sarcastically shot back. "For someone who needs her boyfriend to fight all her battles, you're holding up better than I thought you would."

"Whatever, I'm not sticking around to be maimed by someone with middle-school insults."

With that, Rinoa started to head toward the library with long, purposeful strides, careful not to look back and give her any ammunition to keep on haranguing her — she hadn't counted on her bringing her own bullets however.

As she latched her hand on the library door's handle, Rinoa could still see her out of the corner of her eye. While she kept her gaze averted, her grip on the door had inadvertently loosened. Hyne was it ever hard to concentrate on the mundane when you had an extra shadow lingering around.

"Stop following me." she stiffly told the door, barely managing to swing it open in a futile effort; apparently, her shadow wasn't done lingering around her frame and saw to it that the door remained closed.

Rinoa finally looked her way, thoughts numbing rational thought and basic motion.

"What do you want with me?" she feverishly asked. The blonde merely laughed at her.

"Hm, maybe you are just a brainless bimbo who needs her boyfriend to fight her battles for her after all." she scoffed, decidedly changing her mind, it seemed. "And what the hell are you so scared about? I'm not about to get expelled over you so quit acting like I'm going to punch you."

"_No. You have to quit bothering me._" Rinoa hotly mouthed under her breath. Nat looked rather amused by this for some reason.

"Quit what? I'm not doing anything."

"You're _bothering _me." she said firmly. Rinoa was regaining use of her legs again as the mentally-rooted paralysis was subsiding. Nat still wouldn't move her hand away from the door. Why the hell wasn't the librarian seeing any of this?

"Aw, is the little whore bothered by my teasing? Still need _him _to make mean old Nat go away?" she teased.

"I'm asking you nicely to move your hand Nat." Rinoa said in a low tone. "Please don't-" She felt her blood pressure spike. "-make this harder than it has to be."

"No need to get mad." she sharply cut in. "—I'm sure that whoever you're meeting there can wait a minute or two before you go in the corner to suck them o—"

"Stop it!" the raven-haired girl yelled. "I am not a whore! _Will you just_ _shut the hell up and leave me alone?_"

"Boy, it doesn't take much to get you riled up. I bet that guy at the costume party _really_ liked that."

Rinoa rolled her eyes, throwing in a cursory glare while she was at it.

_God, I can't keep this up anymore,_ she thought_. _

She merely turned away and started walking in the opposite direction. When she heard more footsteps, Rinoa nearly lost it.

She pivoted right there on the spot to face her then.

"I've told you a million times to leave me alone Nat, what's so hard to understand?" she shouted. "If we screw up, fine, that's fair game, but this is getting ridiculous_._"

"You just don't get it, do you?" she spat back. "No scratch that— you just have extremely selective hearing."

"...So I have selective hearing just because I'm ignoring you when you tease me?"

"No, you were ignoring me when I told you that I found out about that one night stand with some guy at that party." she flatly answered.

"That's- just a groundless theory you're trying to get me upset over. Of course I'm going to ignore you."

"Yeah, nice try. You're the one with the groundless theory here. Even your eyes are selling you out now. Lemme guess, did you get rid of more than just your fairy skirt?"

"Shut up...just shut up." Rinoa broke away with even faster strides. It still didn't deter her from following her like white on rice once more.

"...Does he know that you're a little sk—"

Nat didn't even have time to finish insulting her; she'd already hit the water by then.

Rinoa stood there in abject horror.

...Did she just push her into one of the hall's decorative pools of water?

It didn't matter if she couldn't remember; Nat's frantic shouting and panicked splashing caused enough of a stir to catch a random passerby's attention to report her for the speculated crime. The whole thing seemed rather unfair in the grand scheme of things though.

Hypothetically, if she had indeed done this, how was she supposed to know that she couldn't swim?

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"Miss Heartilly, is this true?"

Rinoa couldn't help look down at her hands. Even the fact that Headmaster Cid had forgotten to add the Caraway part of her surname couldn't even manage to perk her up just a little. She was in hot water, deeper than the kind Nat was pathetically splashing in not even a half hour ago.

"Sorry...Headmaster, could you repeat that?"

The older man let out a sigh from the other side of the desk. "I'd just received word from Dr. Kadowaki that the student who fell into the main hallway's water fountain was the one who was involved with the incident nearly a month ago."

Rinoa nodded at this, making sure to let him know she was following along.

"Was this confrontation related to that incident?"

"No...I'd never pick a fight just for revenge." she softly spoke. "I...don't even remember doing this."

"I have a surveillance tape of the incident. If you don't remember, it could fill you in on what you don't recall."

"No, it's...alright." she sombrely accepted. "She wouldn't stop following me where I was going and goading me. I wouldn't blame me if I did it." She shyly looked up at the older man. "So...what's my punishment?"

Just then, the headmaster pulled up his chair ever so slightly; she could hear the slight screech of the legs being dragged against the hard floor. "I dare say that it would be foolish to make any decision without getting another account of the story." he told her. Rinoa appreciated the stab at fairness even though she knew it wouldn't matter anyway.

"...There's not much to say here, really." she quietly conceded. "Like I said before, she was trying to get a rise out of me and I ended up giving her what she wanted. Headmaster, with all due respect, I...I'd rather get this done sooner rather than later if I'm going to be punished for pushing her in regardless of what I say."

_And what hurts the most was that I should have known that she was using me to get to Squall, _she mentally added, _God, I'm such an idiot._

The headmaster cast her a slightly bemused, yet sympathetic look. "By any chance are you under the impression that you pushed Miss Piers into the water?"

Rinoa tossed him a covertly skeptical glance. "Um...yes. Isn't that why I'm here?"

Cid let out a mirthful chuckle. "I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding here."

"Oh. ...How come?" she asked, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

"Contrary the impression you and the student who reported this are under, one of the security camera's tapes show that you didn't push her in. She fell on her own, albeit it did look like you had from most of the cameras' perspectives. I'll admit that even I was fooled until I saw the very last of the footage."

Rinoa looked at him incredulously. "...Really?" He nodded. She sighed in relief knowing that she hadn't gone crazy after all. However, her happiness was cut short after one simple revelation. "Wait, so if I didn't do what I thought I did...is there another reason why I'm still here?"

The headmaster nodded once more with his arms flat on the desk, his fingers interlaced together.

"While my first intent was to talk to you about what just happened to figure out the situation more fully, I also wanted you here because Dr. Kadowaki had informed me of your condition this morning." he told her in a solemn tone. "-In addition to your attempts at fooling her with lead weights in your pockets."

Rinoa wanted to die right then and there. When he reclined into his chair with ruler-straight posture, the kind that screamed authority, Rinoa knew that the lid of the pot of boiling water she was stuck in was going to close for good sometime soon.

Even so, she still had to try to stick out an arm of the pot before the lid came crashing down.

"Headmaster, I'm sorry, it's just that..." her vision was getting blurry with saline, "-things have been busy and the exams haven't-"

"-I realize that things may be rather difficult at the moment but the Garden cannot risk such a liability in the event that you faint at an inopportune moment or suffer heart failure."

"...So, I'm being kicked out?" she choked out.

Fortunately, Cid shook his head. "You're being put on probation until further notice. Dr. Kadowaki wants you to report to her every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning now instead of the previous arrangement. In addition to this, you are to start log to record what you've been eating to submit to her during your appointments."

Biting back the tears, Rinoa tersely nodded.

"Garden's already notified your parents about this and they've both agreed to come in to discuss this tomorrow afternoon." he said with a tone of finality. Rinoa couldn't keep it in anymore; the stream of tears fell freely without her consent the very moment she closed her eyes to blink.

—The day of all days to be at a badminton tournament, _indeed._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

_Monday, February 14—_

_I'd never thought I'd_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Just as quickly as she'd set her pen on the paper and scribbled the date and a few more words, her phone had cut her therapeutic writing session just as fast. Setting aside the notebook with her pen acting as a makeshift bookmark, Rinoa listlessly extended her arm leftward to reach her cell on her nightstand. Flipping it open without even bothering to look at the screen to see who it was, she answered the phone rather dully.

"...Hello?"

"_Rinoa?_"

Her eyes flickered a bit. "Squall?" her voice cracking a little at the last syllable. "I take it you're done?"

"_Yeah. I'm done._"

"_How._.." She paused for a moment, trying to calm her breathing. "...How did you do?"

"_Finished first._"

Almost as if his words held a higher power, Rinoa found the muscles in her face working overtime as the corners of her mouth pulled and pulled upwards.

"Congratulations Squall!" she beamed. "I bet you're happy, huh?"

"_...Not exactly._"

Even though she was very well aware that he couldn't see her, Rinoa furrowed her brows.

"Oh. Why?"

"_I tripped over something I couldn't see and screwed up my left ankle after the last match. I might have to forfeit if it's not well enough by next Tuesday for the nationals._"

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." she softly said. "I'm sure it'll be better by then."

"_I doubt that. I...can't even walk without help right now._"

Rinoa frowned. "Did you have someone bring you home in your car then?"

"_...Yeah_." A sigh pierced her eardrums from the other end. "..._Rinoa?_"

"Yes?"

"_My......parents are out for the night since it's...the fourteenth. I thought I'd be fine by myself but...it hurts more than I-"_ He cut himself off right then._ "...I can't move._"

Rinoa's heart froze right then and there.

"...You want me to come over?" she stammered.

"......_Only if you want to._"

"Alright." she said slowly. "I'll be there. I promise."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Shit, I missed the V-day deadline by 30 minutes. Oh well, that wasn't my intention in the first place, but whatever. Coincidence is always cool.

_-Emerald-Latias_


	51. Chapter L – A Different Shade of Blue

**Author's Notes** – Two milestones to celebrate here this time around.

**No. 1** – It's the two-year anniversary on February 25th – can you guys honestly believe that this thing's been going on for that long? _(...God, I sure as hell can't.)_

**No. 2** – Fifty chapters! Woot.

Hope this makes the dual occasion all the more special. ;)

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter L – A Different Shade of Blue**

-

_Through this world I've stumbled,  
So many times betrayed,  
Trying to find an honest word to find,  
The truth enslaved,  
Oh you speak to me in riddles,  
And you speak to me in rhymes,  
My body aches to breathe your breath,  
Your words keep me alive._

_**-Sarah McLachlan, Possession.**_

-

She tried to stow away her journal to its usual hiding place – tried being the key word because the attempt failed so miserably. It did not want to be submerged into the depths of her nightstand drawer, not even after she finally managed to jot down all of the thoughts she wanted to divulge pre-phone call. Oh no, the thoughts during that said interruption was too strong for her to set it and the accompanying pen between her fingers down. Her heart raced and her head was a little more than jumbled. She so desperately needed some semblance of order; the kind of structure she could use the notebook for. It wasn't long before her pen went to work once more.

_He wants me to come over._

_It's Valentine's Day and his parents are gone._

_He actually said he wants me there._

_This doesn't seem like him._

_I am still going._

Setting down the book into the nightstand's drawer she'd opened earlier, Rinoa silently shut it with the palm of her hand. She left without even bothering to tell a soul, not that could if she wanted to. Her parents were out for the night; they'd made plans long before they'd gotten today's call. Her father looked as if he'd be damned if he was going to cancel the reservation to babysit his teenage daughter despite his wife's pleas. Instead, they'd told her that she wasn't allowed going anywhere and had force-fed her an inhumane portion of food before leaving, knowing all too well that she didn't have it in her to stick her fingers down her throat, assuming that that was good enough assurance.

_Well too bad,_ she defiantly thought, _if everyone's taking advantage of Valentine's Day, I am too._

"_...Even if I am playing his nurse._" she finished the thought aloud.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Her legs had seemingly been on auto-pilot for the past quarter of an hour, clutching an old metal cane as she plodded through the snow-crusted sidewalk en route to his house, stifling nervous giggles along the way. The houses on her street seemed to have blurred into one another because it wasn't long before she saw the curve of the trodden path headed towards the side-street where he lived.

She stopped at this corner instead of rounding it, however. Flipping her cell phone open with her free hand, she punched in a few numbers and consequently placed it to her ear. The call was picked up almost immediately; Rinoa had to smirk after the cursory hello on the other end.

"Hey, you've got radar again," she lightly joshed, quietly laughing to herself when the phone picked up a low groan afterwards.

"_That's not radar, it's called getting a phone call while I had my cell on in my hands to pick a new ringtone._" her friend wryly explained. Rinoa shook her head even though the point was moot.

"I'll just chalk this one up incredible timing then." she cheekily added. "Anyway, I'm just calling to let you know that I won't be able to make it to Ivy's tonight Adrienne. My parents had dinner plans so I'm stuck high and dry here."

"_No problem Rin_." Adrienne replied. "_Say hi to Squall for me._"

With the beginnings of a mischievous smile on her face, she started walking to his house.

"Alright, I will."

She ended the call and turned her phone off before she had the chance to reply. After what felt like a couple dozen footsteps in the right direction, she was standing on his porch. Once she raised her hand to knock on his door, Rinoa could hear the loud shuffling and equally-loud curses from the other side. It seemed like minutes had passed before the noises led to an actual outcome - the opened door.

Seeing him from behind the door was enough to make her rosy cheeks even rosier than the cold weather could ever achieve.

"...The door was already open you know." he said pointedly. This made her cheeks turn red rather than rosy this time.

"Oh...sorry, guess I should have checked first." she mumbled before awkwardly handing him the metal cane she had behind her back. "Here, this is my father's from when he broke a leg a long time ago. It should help until you can put pressure on your foot again."

"Thanks." he said in response to her gift. "...You can come inside if you want."

Rinoa shyly nodded, glad to follow him inside. —The irrational part of her brain almost had her half-expecting that the cane might have taken her place. As she closed the door for him once they were inside, she also closed her eyes for that moment; a near-silent sigh of relief could be heard while she was shucking off her coat and boots.

A couple of seconds later when she'd turned around, Rinoa noticed something peculiar as he began to slowly walk down the hallway with the cane.

"Oh, have you ever had to use one of these before?" she asked while as she caught up to him with a few strides. He pivoted little by using his good foot.

"…What makes you say that?"

"You're using the cane right. People who've never had to use one of these before usually hold the cane on the same side as their hurt foot; which is the wrong way." she pointed out. "You're also walking with it properly too."

"I broke the same leg two years ago when someone forced me to go skiing and I screwed it up pretty badly a year after that in Phys. Ed."

Rinoa had to shake her head a little. "You'd think that after all that, you'd invest in a cane or a plastic bubble."

He shrugged. "Those were only minor nuisances, nothing to warrant actually buying something like that."

"What, the cane or the plastic bubble?" she joshed. He conveniently ignored her comment.

"From what I remember from screwing it up the second time, the first day's the worst of it so it'll be bearable tomorrow because this happened earlier today."

"Alright." she mumbled in agreement. "So…how are you feeling now?"

"Right now I feel like stringing a never-ending amount of four-letter words together, but other than that, fine."

"Is the cane helping any?"

"From the three steps I've taken…it's helped a little." he dryly said as they were walking towards the living room. "I'm considering reducing the number of swears down to a finite number."

"Well, at least that's gotta count something." she commented with a chuckle as they slowly, but surely entered the room. "So, did you want to watch a movie or something?"

"…I'd rather not." he admitted. They'd stopped walking at this point. "I'm kind of sick of television after sitting here for most of the day."

"Oh, alright." She awkwardly paused for a second. "You have any good books that I can bring up from your room?"

Right after she'd suggested that, he must have momentarily forgotten about his bad foot because he'd been leaning heavily on the other while they'd been stationary; the pained, teeth-clenching grimace and guttural grumble under his breath told her as much.

"_No_…I don't have _much_…I'd want _to…_read right now."

"That's fine." she said reassuringly, as if she was trying to ease his mind from his literal faux-pas. She walked over to the couch and deposited herself on it. "Come sit down beside me while we figure out what to do," she invited, patting the couch cushion on her right for emphasis, "-there's_ lots_ of room."

With a sad and even more pronounced limp, he made his way to where she'd gestured at and sat down with a dull thump. His face hadn't failed to magnetically make hers turn and lock eyes nigh instantaneously, shifting their setting's mood rather inadvertently. There were less than a good couple of inches between them; the cane was acting as a divider.

"I guess the cane wasn't all that helpful after all, huh?"

_Ugh, stupid, stupid,_ her brain screamed, _of all things you had to go and say when he's inches away from you face and you had to say **that.**_

"Yeah, you'll have to find one that reminds me that I can't put much pressure on my left foot." he self-depreciatingly replied, reclining against the couch's back cushion. Rinoa mustered the audacity to smile in spite of her own faux-pas.

"Well, I can do that job in the meantime. Just give me a few markers, tape and some paper and I can make a '_kick me'_ sign on my back that says, '_Squall, you messed up your left foot, don't lean on it_.'"

"You'd have to put that on your lower back so your hair won't get in the way." he casually mentioned. "Even then, you'd have to be in front of me at all times."

"True." she conceded, thinking of how bored he must have been to be playing along with her. "Plus if you had to put it that low, people would just assume that you were staring at my butt all day long so that's a no-go."

This comment had earned her _a look._ "…I don't even want to know what drove you to starting this tangent."

"Valentine's Day drove me to thinking it—" Awkward pause. ...Great, another stumble. "—No, not in _that _way, I mean...today's everyone so lovey-dovey, ditching me, making me bake pink-frosted shortbread heart cookies and—well, I got really bored. And that always does a number on my head. What you're experiencing is...just the tail end of it."

_Overshare alert. Bzzt._

"...Is it safe to talk now?"

_Please do_, she mused, '_cause I don't want to right now._

"Um, sure. Go ahead."

"I wasn't going to say anything, I was just asking." he clarified, decidedly going nowhere with this. Darn. "...I assume that today wasn't the greatest from that long, winding sentence?"

"Oh. ...Yeah, it wasn't." she said, choosing her words carefully. "We um...could have had tons of fun making fun of all the mushiness going on. It was that bad."

Squall raised a brow at this. "...You're forgetting that we come just in time for third without sharing any classes anymore."

"Oh yeah, I guess I forgot about that-" Suddenly, another tangent sprang into her head, interrupting her own sentence. "So I guess we'll be taking the bus for a little while?"

He shrugged. "...Hard to say. It'll depend if my left foot can tolerate being in that position for twenty minutes or if my parents will even let me."

"Well, if you aren't allowed, I'll walk over or at least meet you halfway." she offered. Finally, she was hitting her stride again. "I don't know how well Adrienne will like me sitting on her if there aren't any open seats for us but...I think I have enough money to bribe her for at least a week."

"...Still bored?" he deadpanned. Rinoa shook her head.

"No, not really. You're too interesting at the moment." she semi-joked.

"...I fail to see what's so interesting about a guy uncoordinated enough to trip over his own feet after a badminton tournament."

"Well, after today, just about anything is more interesting."

"I still doubt that." he countered. "You're going to have to elaborate for me to believe you."

"Alright, I lied." Rinoa rubbed her eyes for a moment before looking back at him, forced to shift gears once more. She didn't know whether it was a good or bad sign that this came up far earlier than she would have liked. "...Nat tried to provoke me today. Whatever plan to get me in trouble with the headmaster backfired though."

Squall closed his eyes and groaned as he leaned his head back. She could make out the outline of his Adam's apple and sharp jaw line all too clearly.

_"...Why am I not surprised?"_

"Because...it's what she does." she told him flatly. "I don't think she's got any other purpose in life to be honest with you."

This prompted him to lift his head back to where it used to be.

"Don't remind me." he said solemnly. "...So what happened?"

"After first period ended, I was walking alone and she somehow found me and wouldn't go away no matter what I did or how nicely I told her to go. I only remember bits and pieces of all that's been said but she knows about Tyler and the Halloween party somehow. Oh, and I'm apparently a whore who can't defend herself without her boyfriend around."

"...She's digging up your past now?" he snorted, "This is a new low."

"I know, but I think it means that she's getting desperate. Either way, if you don't mind...I'm not really in the mood to talk about it." she calmly said. "We've got a couple of hours to ourselves so I think we should make the most of it before either of our parents come back."

"...Yours gone too?" he asked. She simply nodded in kind.

"They had plans that I didn't know about but from what they told me, I can pretty much guarantee that they won't be back before midnight."

"So...do they know you're here?" This time, Rinoa shook her head.

"No, they left before you called." She paused for a second. "I'm not supposed to go out anywhere, but after today, I thought I deserved some kind of fun."

"I can't blame you for that." he agreed. "You're...not technically supposed to be here either."

Rinoa blinked. This was a definite switch. "..._Really?_"

"Yeah, my mom had nothing to do with this though. _He's_ just been acting really strange all week so I'm not putting too much stock in what he says. I don't know how long you're planning on staying but if they happen to come back when you're still here, don't worry about it."

She nodded. "Thanks for inviting me all the same. This really cheered me up after I had such a crummy day."

Tentatively, she edged herself closer to him, softly taking his closest hand in hers. She smiled when he didn't look away or withdrew his hand. This gave her the courage to place a light kiss on the bridge of his nose. He felt pleasantly cool.

When she pursed her lips and moved back, Rinoa hadn't been expected to see his eyes reopen so soon; they held the warm cerulean hue they sometimes had in certain lighting. She found it intriguing to say the least. While she'd heard about people whose eyes flickered between green and blue or between blue and grey, depending on what they wore, she'd never seen someone with eyes that flickered between different shades of the same colour like his had on occasion.

The smile remained etched on her face though she had released his hand from her loose grip.

"I'm curious. Has...anyone told you that your eyes change colours?"

"No, never." he answered in an almost quizzical tone. "...What colour are they now?"

"They're a soft blue. I can't see much grey, if any." she answered. "Hm. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that your eye colour changes with your mood. You don't wear enough blue or grey to say it's just your clothes."

His eyes were back to their normal stormy blue again. "They've changed before?"

"Yeah. I've seen them turn completely blue more than grey though." she told him. Just as the words died on her lips, an idea sprang to mind. "Hey, can you close your eyes for a second? I want to try something."

"...Like what?" he skeptically asked.

"Don't worry Squall. You'll still have your limbs once I'm done in a few seconds."

With a slight grumble, he closed his eyes. Just as a precaution, Rinoa waved her hand in front of him just to make sure they were actually closed.

"Hey, you're not fooling me mister, I saw that." she light-heartedly chided. "Close them good or else I'll find a blindfold for you."

The teenager sighed, but complied all the same after a few moments. Rinoa did the wave test again and he passed this time. A slight tingle coursed through her body. Ever so slowly, she inched even closer and turned towards him a little. She started off her experiment by gently placing a hand mid-thigh for extra stability as she shifted her position so she could sit on her knees and calves for extra height. The action didn't go unnoticed but, it seemed as if he was trying even harder to keep his eyes closed; she could tell by the features surrounding his eyes.

She softly kissed him near his jaw line, careful not to let her hand slip when he shifted a little. She moved back in time to catch the first glimpse of his eyes cracking open. He took a small, but sharp breath, calmly letting his eyes drift on her. Rinoa playfully used the hand she'd been steadying herself with to cover his eyes once more.

"Hey...what did I tell you about trying to cheat?" she jokingly chastised.

Disregarding what she'd said, he moved her hand away from his eyes. Because he had moved her hand away from her and not towards her, the action almost had her fall into his lap. His quick reflexes had made that an almost instead of a reality. His one hand was still holding onto her hand while the other was holding her up by the small of her back.

"...This apart of the experiment too?" he dryly asked. She shook her head, still stuck in the rather compromising position.

"No. ...Is it apart of yours?" she quipped.

He shrugged. "Depends." he said offhandedly. Rinoa raised a brow at that.

"...Depends on what?"

"Tell me the colour my eyes were when I opened them."

"They were your normal colour." she told him with a straight face. He let go of her hand, allowing her to get back into a less compromising situation. —Then she let him have it. "—It really is a tell of yours, isn't it?"

He abruptly let his head recline backwards and groaned, muttering something under his breath. Rinoa one, Squall zero.

"I'm going to take a stab here and say that grey means you're worried and blue when you're...I don't know...incredibly turned on?"

Faster than she could say '_whiplash_', she could see the blues of his eyes again. _"...You didn't just say that._" he said in a low, gravelly tone.

"I did but I didn't really mean it though. I was just teasing you. Besides, I've seen your eyes go blue in completely different situations."

"That's because they go blue when I'm overwhelmed." he sheepishly admitted. "You were right about the grey though."

"...Really?"

He let out a slow sigh. "Most people don't notice because they don't look me in the eye."

Rinoa couldn't help but to add a little to his admission. "I think that," she started, reaching over to play with a few strands of his hair with her hand, "-the lion's mane you have here doesn't help much either but...that's okay. I like keeping secrets anyway."

Withdrawing her hand, she had to smile. In the wake what she'd just done, it had inadvertently made his hair frame his face nicely, leaving his piercing, stormy-blue eyes perfectly unobstructed. The view didn't last long however.

"_Squall_....why did you have to mess up your hair?" she whined, unhappy with his random decision to run a hand through his own hair and mess it back up again. "I could see your eyes for a change."

"Sorry...it's a force of habit." he apologized. "...Rinoa?"

"...Yes?"

"Could you...close your eyes for a second?"

"Am I allowed to ask why?" He shook his head. "_Alright_...I hope you know that I'm only doing this because I trust you, you know."

"That's...fine."

As she closed her eyes, Rinoa couldn't help but focus on his last words. They seemed to carry a nervous tone which sounded odd. He was mirroring her actions from earlier wasn't he? How hard could a kiss be if she didn't even have her eyes open? Maybe—

"..._You can open your eyes now Rinoa_." She heard him say, abruptly halting her train of thought. When she opened her eyes to find that nothing had changed, Rinoa looked at him quizzically.

"Am I...missing something here?" she asked. He shook his head.

"No, I just needed to think for a moment."

"In other words, you wanted to think for a moment without me gawking at you?"

"...If you wanted to put it like that, sure."

"So...am I supposed to ask what you were thinking of?"

"...Not unless if you want to know how neurotic I am." he self-depreciatingly replied. Placing a hand on his, she cast him a reassuring gaze.

"It's alright Squall, you don't have to be afraid." she told him.

He looked away for a moment before gazing into her eyes again. But just as she was expecting soft pressure on her neck, cheek or even lips, he surprised her with an admission.

"...I'm sorry for all the times this has happened for the wrong reasons or in the wrong circumstances."

"...It's alright," she softly replied, absorbing the fact that he was bothered enough by this to say something, "I understand."

Hearing her words must have served as encouragement because Rinoa didn't have much of a chance to gather her thoughts by the time Squall let his inhibitions go and softly kissed her on the cheek, delightfully returning the favour from earlier.

As things were starting to naturally grow a little warmer between them from purely innocent back and forth nature of their tokens of their affection towards one another, Rinoa quietly broke away after she'd peppered her last kiss on his neck. She stole a glimpse of his eyes opening a fraction, her ears conveniently poised to catch the sound his breath coming in near-silent gulps. His face was slightly flushed.

"Happy one week anniversary." she told him with a smile.

He smiled back at her but it wasn't long before he closed the gap once more, continuing where they'd left off with a little more fervour, something almost unheard of after her handful of experiences with him. Even so, it felt appropriate for the occasion and she had no qualms with it. Truth be told, Rinoa wanted nothing more than to laugh or at least to bury her hands in his hair as he was making her neck tremble with his lips right now.

Her timing with that announcement left a lot to be desired, but it still didn't escape the fact that his eyes were indeed blue at the moment.

_Overwhelmed, my ass,_ she scarcely thought as she looped her hands around his neck and sidled herself even closer do him for support and convenience, whole heartedly ignoring the random noise she heard in the background.

All of a sudden, the tingling sensation began to ebb. Wait, why was he suddenly backing away from her with that look on his face?

_Oh no, please don't let it be his parents behind us,_ she mentally panicked.

"...You've...got to be more...careful." he said through a strained tone. "...You made...that cane fall on the corner of my bad foot...when you looped your arms."

"Oops, I didn't mean to."

"...It's fine." he said calmly. "Just...know what you're doing when you're getting into this, alright?"

She calmly nodded as she rested her head on his shoulder, nestling her arms against his frame. She didn't know why she was feeling so tired all of a sudden, but she just did. It wasn't long before her eyes began to feel heavier with each passing second.

When they finally closed themselves completely, she could feel his strong arms pull her legs from under her and towards the other side of his lap, following the action through by lifting up her whole frame so she was sitting sideways on his lap. He felt warm like a security blanket, encircling her with his arms. With her ear to his chest, Rinoa could hear his heart beat in quick but steady intervals.

Maybe the cane falling on his foot had been a blessing in disguise. In spite of what part of her wanted, deep down, she didn't want to risk having her night turn into another Valentine's cliché. This ending felt like so much more.

And maybe, just maybe...perhaps he wasn't the only one who needed to be tended to after all.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments** – Well, I hope you enjoyed that. I know I did. I haven't done a fluffy piece in a while so it was nice for a change. Sorry if this was a little late, I had this done sooner but for some reason was all glitch-y in the login section of the website. Sure, it just had to happen during the only time I felt like being speedy so far this year. Ugh.

_-Emerald-Latias_


	52. Chapter LI – Cold Snap

**Author's Notes – **Hehe. I was looking through my old chapters for RM and I found something sort of interesting. Namely me sucking at making predictions like I'd predicted (ironic, no?). Now I'll assume that you guys won't have a clue regarding what I'm saying here so this was what I wrote on **Chapter XXXVII**'s author's notes:

'_I have no idea of when this'll be finished though since I'm incredibly talented at writing so much and saying so little. My guess would be that this would end at around Chapter 50, but who knows? I suck at guessing anyway.__'_

...Ain't it the truth?

Anyways, I thought I'd take a creative twist here for this chapter just for kicks. I don't know if you've been following along but, I have a relatively new collection of one-shots called _One Song at a Time. _For that, I basically write a one-shot per song while the music player has it all on shuffle. Relating that to this, I'd thought I'd apply the same principle except to a greater scale where song that happens to pop up influences what happens in the chapter instead of the usual other way around.

And yes, the song that pops up will be the one in the snippet at the beginning.

Enjoy!

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter LI – Cold Snap**

-

_You haven't seen the world outside for days,  
You sleep, you hope, you wait,  
Imagination disappears,  
And all the dreams you have, you save,  
Confrontation like a mirror,  
They try to take your mind away._

_**-Our Lady Peace, Right Behind You.**_

-

When her eyes fluttered open, Rinoa hadn't expected two things. The first was that Squall was nowhere to be seen. The second was the fact that there wasn't a single light on within her range of sight — or lack there of because...well, none of the lights were on.

After rubbing her eyes a little, she acted on her first instinct, which was to find her MIA boyfriend, hoping he didn't go far or hurt himself. Rinoa got up from the couch and made a beeline out of the living room. Fortunately enough, Rinoa heard some shuffling in the kitchen. It was a welcome dead giveaway.

Walking into the kitchen, she could see his face illuminated by a rectangular object he seemed to be holding in his free hand. Rinoa made '_scoot_' noises by barely skimming the floor with her one foot. He looked up at her and closed the source of the light and pocketed it.

"Care to fill me in on what's going on?" she asked. "Power go out?"

She could make out his form nodding back. "Yeah, a cold snap's messed up the lines. My parents called my phone saying that they'll be staying at a hotel near the restaurant they were at. There are a lot of cars in the ditches on top of a severe car crash blocking the road they needed to get back home."

Rinoa furrowed her brows. "That can't be. It wasn't _that_ cold when I walked over here a half an hour ago."

"Make that two and a half hours ago. You've been sleeping on the couch for about two solid hours."

"Really? Are you sure? It...didn't feel that long."

"My watch," He pointed to it for effect. "-doesn't lie. It's about 9:30 right now. And I was with you on the couch until the power cut around quarter after nine."

Rinoa wanted to '_aww'_ at that so badly but she still needed to get their bearings straight above all else, including _aww-ing_.

"Alright. I'll check my phone to see if my parents called me and then we should take it from there. I'll be back in a moment."

She would have been back in merely a moment if not for his voice stopping her dead in her tracks as she turned around to leave.

"...I'm not letting you go out in the cold Rinoa if they happen to get home tonight." he firmly told her. "If you get in trouble, I'll take the blame for it."

She turned back on the dime.

"Squall, it can't possibly be that bad out." she tried to reason with him. "I'm probably in enough trouble as it is since I didn't answer my cell or the home phone. And knowing them, they will be home and they will be livid that I left to see my boyfriend on _'excuse-for-charming-boys-to-get-laid'_ day."

"...Do they honestly think that little of you or are you making that assumption?"

"I_ know _that's what my father will think and my mom will worry because they left when I wasn't in the best of moods." she answered.

"Well, check your phone before you jump to conclusions like that. Who knows, maybe you'll be lucky enough to have an _'excuse-for-charming-boys-to-get-laid' _day miracle and they won't be home." he sardonically retorted.

In spite of herself, Rinoa felt the familiar facial muscles hard at work, making sure that the corners of her lips were as far apart as possible. "You know, I never realized how particular your sense of humour is." she brazenly mentioned. "I like it."

After getting a shrug as a response, she darted off in the direction of her coat, or the front entrance to be precise. She flipped open her phone and turned it on, patiently waiting for the ringer to signify whether or not she had received any voicemail or text messages.

It was almost a minute later when she finally heard that ringer. Her eyes were glued onto the screen, reading the sent text.

"_Squall!_" she shouted from where she was, either too eager to wait to tell him or too lazy to just move. "_I guess we have an 'excuse-for-charming-boys-to-get-laid' day mirac—Oh...no...no._"

Rinoa couldn't will herself to say anymore, allowing the cold clack of his cane and the softer thumps of his footsteps to fill the dark void in the place of her voice. She had to concentrate on breathing as she waited for a third text,_ one that surely had to come...it had to._

"...Rinoa?" Rinoa quietly turned to face him. The phone was still open in her hand, still illuminating her face. Would it show how pale she was or how weak she felt like right now? "...Did something happen?"

"It's not _'excuse-for-charming-boys-to-get-laid' _day anymore." she calmly told him. He took a few more awkward steps forward, bringing himself in the view with the aide of the cold, icicle-blue glow of her phone. Rinoa closed her phone right then and there, not wanting him to see the sad gleam in her eyes.

"Rinoa..." he softly reiterated, placing his free hand on her shoulder. "...are you okay?"

A single tear fell. ...A single of many that were surely going to come.

"_Nothing ever good happens on this day._" Rinoa seethed. She defiantly wiped a tear, trying to put on brave face which betrayed everything she felt right now. "_Did I ever tell you that I was admitted to Obel Lake on the fourteenth, a year ago to this very day?_"

"No you haven't." he quietly answered. "Rinoa...please. What happened?"

Rinoa turned away from him and looked down, only to feel more tears splashing her toes. Reality had finally sunk in, even though it still felt surreal.

"...I'm an orphan now." she choked. "My parents were the ones in the accident you mentioned."

Rinoa didn't remember falling right after; all she could remember was the clatter of metal and Squall's tight grip supporting her.

"_I'm right behind you-_" he had said through the pain of his injury, "..._I'll get you through this. I promise._"

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Once again, I haven't been able to follow through on what I thought I was going to do. Go figure. I can't even do that with an experiment. Oh well, it is more fitting than what I initially thought of. Sorry for the shortness though. I just thought it felt appropriate to end there. Oh, and this has been the quickest I've officially written a chapter. I think I started this at around nine and it's a little past midnight now.

_-Emerald-Latias_


	53. Chapter LII – Guardian’s Suspicion

**Author's Notes – **Okay, a lot of you may have been put off by last chapter, so let me explain myself here. As you might know, I am notorious for having to constantly change anything I have planned long term and to be honest, not the last chapter, but the one before that (Chapter L) screwed up some things. More than often than not, I get more interesting notions that fit better than what I planned and this is one of those times. I wrote what I wrote because I was feeling like I'd painted myself in a corner and getting into a rut which ultimately wouldn't let me go where I need to be with this fic. It's not to say,_ 'oh, nothing's happening, lets throw that in to spice things up!' _Even if it was unplanned, I don't do things without thinking them through.

I should have mentioned this in last chapter's ending chapter comments, but I was too eager to post it before I went to bed. If you really think about the situation, Rinoa had received two texts. The first, as you can infer is from them saying that they're staying at a hotel by the, '_I guess we have an 'excuse-for-charming-boys-to-get-laid' day mirac—' _line and the second (if you'll recall, she didn't put it to her ear and nothing was noted as being heard so it can't be voicemail) from the, '-_oh...no..no._'

Anyways, I'm not going explain this any further because it'll get answered in this chapter.

And to clarify about the Our Lady Peace song influencing the last chapter from my experiment, no, I did not force myself to make it fit, I would have dropped the idea if it was getting too hard. Hell, I wasn't following the lyrics completely anyway.

Sorry for the wall of text here, it needed to be written and to be honest; I'm not in a good mood. While I can understand being pretty shocked, but don't guilt me into feeling like shit because it's not what you expected. Car accidents happen to people every day. Of course it's sad but at the same time, it's nothing new. Why, if you'll recall, one happened to Julia in the game too.

Oh yeah, this is a Squall-centric chapter this time around. You'll find out why rather quickly.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter LII – Guardian's Suspicion**

-

_On broken wings, I'm falling,  
And it won't be long,  
The skin on me is burning,  
By the fires of the sun,  
On skinned knees, I'm bleeding,  
And it won't be long,  
I've got to find that meaning,  
And I'll search for so long._

_**-Alter Bridge, Broken Wings.**_

-

The admission had hit him hard as it rightfully should have. She was supposed to be the one well on her way to recovery, not saddled with yet another hardship life had cruelly thrown her way. He was supposed to be fate's whipping boy, not the both of them.

He gripped her tighter, hoping that his embrace was enough to keep her together. God only knew that he was not the first person to come to for comforting but, damn it, he could relate to the surreal hollowness death brought. Still, something did not feel right. If he remembered correctly, he'd seen her holding out her cell in front of her when she suddenly trailed off. To him, that suggested that she had received the news via text; he hadn't heard any voice safe for hers, the only other noise being the singular beep that had punctuated what seemed like her last moment of innocence.

_No, that couldn't be right, _he mentally reiterated, _you don't send that kind of news via text._

"_Squall_..." she sniffled, her voice breaking the unnatural silence.

"...Yeah?"

She gripped him even tighter. "_Don't...don't leave me._"

"I won't." he softly told her. "Let's just...get to the couch, alright?"

"..._Oh right...your foot. I'm...sorry._"

"...It's alright." he replied, making sure that she couldn't hear the pain accenting his words.

She slowly got up, holding onto the wall for balance as he quietly picked up the previously-discarded cane by leaning heavily on his right foot. Once he got up with the cane in hand, he walked behind her back so he was on her left, making sure that she knew that it was okay to lean on him if she needed some support. The invitation was unconsciously accepted when Squall felt her arm mindlessly intertwine itself around his own during their slow walk to the living room. While he so sorely felt like screaming a million different obscenities because of the white-hot agony his foot was causing him at this moment, it didn't even begin to compare with the feeling of his insides rotting piece by piece at her current predicament leaving her so despondent like this.

...It _just_ wasn't like her.

Even in times of personal despair, he had always seen a gleam of hopefulness or resilience in her eyes, anything but the nothingness he was seeing now - the kind of nothingness that only he should have ever _exp-_

_Stop bringing it back to yourself, _his mind scolded, _this isn't about you. You should be there for her, not trying to make parallels to drag her down with you. _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

He stayed on the couch with her for hours on end before she lulled herself into an uneasy and fitful sleep. They'd only shared a few words since they'd sat themselves down, but other than that, it was nothing more than uncomfortable silence. Maybe now was the chance he was looking for.

With the utmost care, Squall took this chance to fish out the phone in her left pocket. He knew that snooping around like this was bad but it wasn't often where he had an undeniable gut feeling as strong as this. Pocketing her phone, he quietly got up and hobbled as silently as possible out of the room. A few painful minutes had passed before he reached the dining room but it was a necessary evil. He knew that Rinoa would need needed whatever little sleep came her way and that he needed some level of privacy if he was ever going to do this.

He flipped the phone open, only to be blinded by the glow of the back screen as he began to click through the various menus to get to the stored text messages. Soon enough, he found what he was looking for, starting with the second-last message sent at 9:03.

_Hi Rinoa, we're staying at a hotel because of the roads. See you tomorrow sweetie. :)_

After memorizing the phone number tied to that message, he checked the last message and found that the phone number related to it was indeed different. The different number seemingly came part and parcel with an equally-different tone present in its message as well. Squall wanted nothing more than to throw something at a wall because of it right now.

_Ms Rinoa Caraway-Heartilly, I regret to inform you that your parents were involved in a fatal car crash at 9:12 tonight due to weather-related causes. Please call Balamb General for more info._

"..._Please call Balamb General for more info?_" he repeated aloud, hardly believing that the words were even coming out of his mouth. Has the world become desensitized enough to leave things so fragile in nature to be manhandled into a half-assed text message?

With an almost violent undertone to his thumb movements, he called the number in question - each ring getting more and more under his skin, burrowing into his very mind even. After what seemed like an eternity, someone lazily picked up the phone on the other end.

"..._Hello, Balamb General, how may I assist you?_"

The nasal, almost monotone voice didn't help Squall's livid mood any. Thankfully, it didn't affect his ability to recall the only time Rinoa's parents' names had been mentioned.

"I need you to clarify something about Fury Caraway and Julia Heartilly's admittance here tonight."

A few faint clicks of a keyboard could be heard from the other end of the line.

"I'm sorry, but that information can only be released to direct family members and the only ones listed here is their daughter Rinoa and Fury Caraway's two older brothers."

"Alright, then answer me this then." he said coolly, trying to keep the seething from bubbling into his tone. "If the hospital has a policy on restricting patient information to family members, why is it that they'll allow the practice of sending text messages regarding patients when they could be potentially read by anyone with access to the phone?"

"I can assure you that the instances where a notification is sent via text message is only used in the oft chance where the primary contact is unable to be reached by any other means."

Squall finally had enough. He'd reached his breaking point and then some.

"That doesn't excuse the fact that you fucking sent her a text message about her parents' death." he hotly spat. "If you would have had the decency to try calling her again not even five fucking minutes later, you would have been able to tell her in person."

The line went silent for a good lengthy pause.

"I'm afraid there's been a mistake here." the receptionist admitted. Now a question remained. Did he dare hope for some better news? "Text notifications are only supposed to notify contacts to call the hospital, not to disclose any personal information about the patients for confidentiality issues."

Squall closed his eyes tightly, clenching a fist hard enough for his veins to start raising underneath his skin.

"So...you're saying that the only mistake here is letting Rinoa know through a text message rather than her parents' condition?"

There was yet another pause. "_Mostly._" she said in a hushed voice. "_Fury passed away immediately after the head-on collision with the transport. Julia's still alive but judging by the extent of her injuries from her chart, it doesn't look like she'll last the night. Rinoa might have the chance to say goodbye if you bring her here right away though._"

"A-alright." he choked. "...Thank you."

He turned the phone off, collapsing into a nearby chair, heavily weighed down by this newfound knowledge.

He had the power to allow Rinoa a chance to say goodbye to her mother but a question still remained.

Would this serve to help or to hurt the young woman who'd gone through so much in such a short time?

Squall knew it wasn't a decision to be taken lightly, also realizing that it was never truly his to even begin with.

.._.And Hyne help him if he made the wrong one. _

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **I know it's another short one, but I updated in the same day so I think it sort of makes up for it. Hope this doesn't disappoint you guys as much. (Or piss off those of you who might work in a hospital because I probably fudged stuff up.)

_-Emerald-Latias_


	54. Chapter LIII – Farewell

**Author's Notes – **Nothing much to say here, just try to enjoy this chapter if you can. This chapter is going to be split between Squall and Rinoa's POV. I won't going back and forth with this so it'll make sure you guys won't get confused.

Oh and just so you know, the song I've used for the snippet here was actually written for an Allstate commercial, dedicated to young drivers who've lost their lives in car accidents. I know that it's reversed here, but I thought it'd be somewhat fitting.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter LIII – Farewell**

-

_So far away from where you are,  
These miles have torn us worlds apart,  
And I miss you, yeah I miss you,  
So far away from where you are,  
I'm standing underneath the stars,  
And I wish you were here.  
_

_**-Lifehouse, From Where You Are.**_

-

He knew he didn't have long to make a decision as time was of the essence so he decided to combine walking to living room with mulling this over in his head at the same time, the shots of pain coursing through his left leg like thunderbolts, constantly reminding him of his piss-poor condition. _Alright,_ he began to think as he ignored the puntuating pain, _the car is in the garage so I wouldn't have to warm it up as much so._.. He stopped in mid-thought. _What if the snow had accumulated enough to prevent them from getting out of the driveway?_

_Shit._ So much for his concrete conclusion on the matter.

Though his actions weren't graceful enough to be considered 'turning on a dime,' Squall turned around relatively quick enough to walk towards the front door. After a few curses had passed his lips, he was close enough to open the door. As the cold wasted no time in rushing past his body he could see why things had gotten as bad as they did so quickly. The driveway was covered in shin-high snow. And by the looks of things, it didn't seem so dense but the wind blowing was doing a good job at transforming it into a white fog.

Squall closed the door, beginning to truly wonder if it would it even be worth it to go out at this time of night. He obviously knew that it wouldn't help anyone to get into an accident of their own.

_No,_ another thought had fought its way through,_ there's a quick way to get to the hospital using the back roads in this subdivision. The worst-case scenario is that we hit something at low speed. We'll be fine. _

Still, he had to get the car out of the garage first.

Without another thought, he grabbed his coat from the nearby coat rack, put it on and tried to slip both boots on to no avail. His sprained ankle had swelled enough to make it impossible to put the one boot, not that it truly mattered as Squall hastily decided to do without, switching the side he was using the cane with to carry on without it.

He entered through the side door leading to the garage on the opposing side to the coat rack. Flicking on the light, he carefully descended down the one step and walked around the cold concrete floor to open the car door. After he opened it without having to unlock anything, Squall lowered himself by putting all his weight on his right leg until he was just about level with the driver's seat. He sat himself into the seat sideways, placing the cane onto the back seat. One by one, he put his legs inside the car, taking extra precaution with his left foot by steadying it with a hand on either side.

Fishing out the keys from his right coat pocket, Squall clicked the button on the device attached to his keys to open the garage door and consequently stuck the keys into the ignition to turn on the engine. As the mechanical sound of the door buzzed through his ears and the engine came to life with some gentle rumbling, he closed the door only to find Rinoa at the side door not even thirty seconds later. Before he had the chance to close the garage door or cut the engine, she walked over to the passenger's side and quietly opened the door to poke her head inside.

"..._Where are you going?_" she meekly asked.

Squall cut the engine as he near-silently sighed. He should have known this would have made too much of a racket but it didn't really matter now. She was already here and asking a question, a question he had no idea how to phrase at the moment. Even still, it wasn't something to be avoided. All he could do is hope for the best right now.

"...I'm not going anywhere without you. I meant my promise when I told you that."

"_So...what are you doing in here...if you weren't going to leave without me?_"

"I was making sure I could get the car out into the driveway before I was going to wake you up." he answered truthfully, immensely thankful she believed his words when he said he wasn't going leave without her.

"._..Why?_" It was easy to see that she was getting anxious and so he decided to come out with it once and for all.

"Listen carefully, alright." She nodded. "I...couldn't believe that you got that news by a text so I...I borrowed your phone and called the number and there's been..." When he saw her hanging on her every word, watching her brown eyes expand with the faintest traces of hope...it was almost too much to bear. He knew that his words couldn't too hopeful or bleak and..._God was it ever such a fine line between the both._ "...a slight misunderstanding."

"_So...they're.._."

"No, _I'm._..afraid it's not what you think." He looked down for a moment in reflection. "The misunderstanding means that...if we go now, you'll get a chance to say goodbye to your mother."

When he finally had the courage to look up, Squall almost wished he hadn't. Her eyes were red and puffy, tears were streaming down her face _and— _

_...She_ reached over from the other side to pull him into a soul-crushing hug, threatening to cut off his air supply. He wrapped his arms around her in kind, letting the saline stain his shoulders and meander down to his neck. A few moments had passed before he dared to break contact.

"...Get your coat and boots on and we'll leave immediately." he softly told her. She nodded and got out of the car – not before stopping to turn to face him however.

"..._Thank you. Thank you so much._"

Squall shook his head. "This is only a plan. Save your thanks for later if it works out."

"_No._" she countered. "_You've gone above and beyond already...it would be wrong not to say anything._"

And with that, she left garage and went through the side door. Squall turned the engine back on. As the rumbling permeated his ears once more, he set his head against the wheel and closed his eyes to gather his jumbled and convoluted thoughts.

After he heard the garage's side door slam a half-minute later, he jerked his head away from the wheel and watched her scurry into the car. Once she was inside, his eyes lingered on her profile until she closed the door; the very moment he snapped back into reality and prepared himself to back out of here. He turned his head even further to look through the back mirror and with his foot on the brake pedal, he shifted into reverse. He took a deep breath, damn well aware of the fact that he'd need to give the car a running start, powdery snow or not. He moved his foot over to the gas and gently pressed down before putting more pressure on the pedal. Just as the back tires were going to pass the garage's threshold, he pressed a little harder and, faster than he could blink; they were flying through the driveway, weaving every which way rather unsteadily. When it came time to turn out of the driveway, Squall had to take his foot off the gas and tap the _break—_

—_All of a sudden,_ they heard and felt a loud '_konk!'_ noise, followed by the rise and thump of the car. After coming to a slippery stop, Squall came to the realization that he'd gone over the snow covered driveway and over the small curb, narrowly missing the fire hydrant a little further on the right. Almost as if they were reading each other's minds, they looked at one another at precisely the same time. Squall absent-mindedly pushed the button on the clicker on his keychain to close the garage door from a few feet away.

"Are...you alright?" he asked upon noticing that she looked faintly green. She shook her head defiantly.

"_I'll be okay...just...let's get to the hospital._"

He gave her a reassuring glance and shifted into drive. Looking forward, he could only see a few feet ahead but what he could make out was that there were no cars on the road, parked or moving. He glanced at the red LCD letters of the car's clock and flicked on the wipers, ignoring the cold throb of his left foot at the same time. It was quarter to twelve and he just hoped that it didn't mean anything if the clock struck twelve in this fucked-up fairytale of a second chance as he pressed on the gas once more.

As the wipers did their job, the snowy landscape seemed a little less daunting and a little more manageable. As they passed by the houses, the silence grew more prominent. He hadn't dared to move his hand from the wheel to turn on the radio but, maybe she would turn it on if he said it'd be okay to do so if she wanted to listen to something.

He tried to make the words come out of his mouth but it was to no avail; his throat was dryer than Centra's climate. The idea was abandoned right then and there - he'd just have to deal with this silence.

If this was in any other situation, he would have duly noted the underlying irony, but not now.

This was just something he was just going to have to get used to.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After a trying twenty-five minutes later, they were at their destination, parked at the closest they could be at the visitor's end of the hospital. After turning off the engine and reaching backwards to get his cane, they both got out of the car. Rinoa, having done so more easily, had surprised Squall in offering to help him after rounding the car quickly.

While she held his cane, he climbed out of the car by planting his good foot on the ground and pulling himself up by grabbing the edge of the car's roof. Once he was at full height with his bad foot in mid-air, Rinoa handed the cane back and they began to walk towards the entrance after the car door was shut and locked.

"...Is your foot going to be alright?" Rinoa seemingly asked out of the blue when they were halfway towards the door - or maybe it just so happened to do with the fact that he was blatantly straining to keep up with her, dampening his foot with every step in the snowy parking lot.

"I'll manage." he weakly answered. _After all, _he thought, _it was easy to manage what you couldn't feel._

"Okay." she absent-mindedly replied before focusing on the doors in front of them once more. He did too and their combined concentration on getting to the doors made for what seemed like an endless walk that stretched on for miles. But at the same time, it felt like time was coming in bits and pieces once they finally made it inside. Squall wondered if he was going delirious because of this time distortion but then he remembered the cardinal rule when it came to situations like this.

_Time goes slowly if you want something to happen but it goes by quickly when you don't._

"...Is there something I can help you two with?"

Squall came out of his slight reverie right then and there. It was that nasally voice again — the lady behind the orange receptionist's desk in the emergency room was the same lady from the phone.

"_I came to_..." When Rinoa's voice faltered, it simultaneously banished all of the illusions and disbelief in his mind. This was real. This was happening, but...why was it so hard so much to hear her actually say the words? "...I came to say goodbye to my mom Julia Heartilly. I'm Rinoa...Rinoa Heartilly."

She warmly nodded to her before typing in a few keystrokes on the computer.

"She's in room 211 on the second floor." the woman told her. "If you'll go to your left, you'll find the closest elevator to get there down the hall."

Rinoa muttered a brief thanks to her but looked back instead of going forward to the elevator. Squall couldn't help but to frown at this. He knew exactly why she was looking back and she wasn't going to like the answer he was going to have to tell her.

"I'm not allowed to go with you Rinoa." he gently told her. "I'm not family. You have to do this alone while I wait here."

"_But._.." she mumbled. He firmly shook his head.

"Go now before it's too late. I'll be waiting for you here."

She looked as if she was caught between wanting to do two different actions, but in the end, she finally left for the elevator by herself. When he saw that she had finally gotten on the elevator, Squall sat down on the nearby chair, tucking his left leg behind his right so he wouldn't draw attention to the fact that he only had one boot on.

"_Ahem._" It was the nurse at the receptionist's desk again. Squall looked at her from his seat.

"That...was directed at me, wasn't it?" he asked.

She nodded. "The emergency waiting room is for incoming patients and after tonight's storm, I'm afraid we'll need all the room we can get."

"Well, where am I supposed to go then?" he incredulously replied, "I can't afford to walk around aimlessly on an injured foot."

"I'd suggest that you go down to the hall on your right and walk into the first room you see on your left to get that properly bandaged before it becomes a fourth degree sprain. And once that is over with in a few minutes, it would be wise to go follow her. There should be chairs outside of the room."

Squall stood there dumbfounded before it all registered a moment later.

"..._Thanks_."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

This was it, the moment before she'd take that first step into the room and have the last moment she'd ever have with her mother.

It was so surreal to be here. Deep in the corners of her mind, she'd always imagined that it would have been the other way around, that her mother would be visiting _her_ on her deathbed, that_ she_ would outlive _her._ It always seemed like a large possibility given that it almost happened once already. Rinoa closed her eyes and rid herself of these thoughts. She only had a few hours at best and it would be foolish to squander them away like that. Not after all Squall had done to get them here.

She walked forward and grabbed hold of the doorknob to her room. When she twisted it open and let herself in ever so slowly, it made a foreboding creak in midst of the pitch-black room. Rinoa stifled another reoccurring sob, determined to be strong, if only for a moment.

As she quietly walked past the rectangular curtained-off section on her left and a door, presumably a bathroom door, on her right, the soft glow of a dim lamp cast enough light on the bed in the far corner to allow her to recognize the figure lying in it. Even though the said figure was wrapped in bandages and hooked up to several machines flanking her on both sides, Rinoa knew it to be her mom. No one else had such beautiful, long dark brown tresses like her mom did; she was one of a kind that way and she still was, even now.

Rinoa took another deep, steadying breath right then and there. _This was truly it_, she reiterated to herself, _and there is no turning back_. And so, without another conscious thought, she walked up to her bed. Her mother's eyes were closed but her chest was still rising and falling – it looked like the teenager wasn't too late after all.

"..._Mom?_" Rinoa called out to her. Slowly, but surely, the older woman opened her eyes. Though they were rather bloodshot, but they still held the warmth they always had.

"..._I'm so glad you made it sweetie._" she softly told her daughter. Rinoa managed a small smile, fighting back the rush of tears at the same time when Julia smiled back in kind.

"_I have Squall to thank for that._" she whispered back. "_He drove me here as fast as he could with a really bad sprained ankle after he...got to the bottom of this when...there was a mix up with the hospital._"

"_Well, you'll have to tell him thanks for me when you get the chance._"

"_A-alright._" When her bottom lip started to quiver and her throat began to close up, Rinoa knew it was over; she couldn't keep up the brave face anymore. The tears finally fell. "_M-mom...I don't...I don't want you to die. I...I need you too much. Hyne, why did it have to be you and dad? ...W-why couldn't it be someone else?_"

"_Rinoa...._" Julia reached out to her daughter by gripping her hand with her own. "_...we can't choose what fate has in store for us. Nobody likes it when...tragedy takes away the ones you love, but it's life. Sometimes...you can't do anything other than to accept what's meant to be._"

"_Well... I don't believe in f-fate so it can't... it can't take you away from me,_" she argued, "_And you'll be okay and then...we...we can go home together after you get better._"

"_Rinoa...as much as I would like that to be true...I know that I only have very little time left in this world._" she told her daughter whose face was now completely marred with tears. "_...I know this is really hard for you and...I wish I didn't have to make you cry like this, but...let's make the most of the time we have now._"

"_B-but..._"

"..._Please,_" she pleaded, "_...I don't want my last moments with you to be sad...even if I can't stay here with you like I want to."_

"_...O-okay..." _she choked out, wiping away the tears left and right, _"...I'll try."_

"..._That's...my girl._"

"._..M-mom?_" Rinoa called out to her mother when her eyes were beginning to close once more and her grip on her arm was beginning to loosen. "_No....not already. I...I didn't get to..."_

"_Don't worry..._" her mother weakly replied. "._..I haven't gone...anywhere just yet._"

"_You...promise?_"

Julia opened her eyes a little. "_I promise._"

Rinoa stifled the remainder of her tears and pulled up a chair nearby so she could lay her head on her mother's bed, allowing her mother to lovingly stroke her hair.

"._..Rinoa..._" Julia softly began when she tucked a loose strand of her daughter's hair behind her ear, "._..before I leave you...I want you to know that you were and still are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I know I don't have much but I want to give you my silver wedding ring._"

"_...You mean the one I'd always used to try and put on my necklace as a little girl?_"

The older woman smiled. "_The very one._"

Before she knew it, the said ring was placed right in front of her eyes. Hesitantly, Rinoa took it in her hand, clasping it tightly with her fingers. She tilted her head backwards so she could see her mother's face once more.

"_Go on..." _she encouraged, _"I want to see what it looks like on your necklace now._"

"_...A-alright._"

Rinoa sat up straight on her chair and reached her hands behind her back to undo the clasp, methodically taking extra precautions to ensure that the ring stayed within her fingers. After a few trying moments, she had carefully slid the ring through the bare chain and caught the clasp on the first try. Moving her hand away from the chain, she turned so that her mother could see.

"..._It's beautiful, Rinoa._"

Rinoa shyly accepted the compliment but when she noticed that her mom was beginning to drift off for good, she knew it was time to add more to her thanks.

"_Thank you...for everything, mom._" Rinoa told her. "_I'm...going to miss you, but...I'm not going to say goodbye because...because I know that you'll always be there, watching over me._"

After Julia gave her an appreciative nod and smile, she finally allowed herself the comfort of eternal slumber as she closed her eyes once and for all. When her mother's last moment on this earth had passed, Rinoa got up from her chair and tucked her mother in and planted a kiss on her cheek in a final act of kindness, letting her lips linger for an extra second or two.

It was a while before Rinoa found the courage to leave the room, but when she did, she was not alone; Squall had been waiting for her on the chairs on the other side of the door. He looked a little worse for wear, but it didn't matter. She was immensely thankful for his presence alone.

Without another thought, she walked over and sat on the spare chair beside him.

"...Did you get enough time with her?" he asked. While it seemed like an odd question, Rinoa knew where he was coming from.

"Yes...I did." she quietly told him. "...Squall?"

"...Yeah?"

"My mom told me to thank you for getting me here on time and...I want to say thanks too. I...couldn't have done this without you." she sombrely said. "...Not in a million years."

He looked downwards. "You're.......welcome." Then he looked up. "...I don't know what you had the chance to say but...if you don't have anywhere to stay...I called my parents in the parking lot and they said you could stay at the house for as long as you need."

Rinoa honestly didn't know what to say at this moment. All she could do was cry.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **I really hope that turned out well enough, I was trying my best to write this in the proper mood by playing sombre/quiet/haunting music like Evans Blue's Quote, Our Lady Peace's Not Enough, Lifehouse's Everything and Breaking Benjamin's Rain. _And..._truth be told, something happened to me while I was writing the beginning of the scene with Julia and Rinoa.

Now, I've written plenty of heavy stuff in the past, but this one scene seemed to get to me for some reason because I actually _cried_ while I was writing it. I can't explain why that happened, but it just did. While it may not sound like anything to most people, it does to me because I'm not an emotional person and I _never_ cry.

Well, I suppose I'll just hope for the best here. Cheers. :)

_-Emerald-Latias_


	55. Chapter LIV – Before the Dawn Breaks

**Author's Notes - **Well, it looks like I've finally jumped a few spots as far as the overall length ranking goes in the VIII section, that is to say I'm now 16th overall, and 9th out of the uncompleted fics. Woot! I finally cracked the top ten. :)

(EDIT - I just checked and now I'm 17th overall and 10th out of incomplete stuff...grrrr....stupid people who update faster than I do ruin my fun.)

And before I forget to mention this, it's in Squall's POV for now. As you can see from Rinoa's part in the last chapter, Squall might be the more suitable perspective for now.

On a less cheery note, I've been very lenient with this for a long time now but, if you've liked this story enough to fave and/or put it on alert, could you guys kindly leave a few words for me? I'd appreciate it very much and I'm not going to lie, it does give me greater motivation to do these chapters and it saves me from giving myself yet another complex.

And just as a random reminder, Squall's stature/build isn't quite the same like it is in the game. There's a mention of his height (there's a reason why though it's maybe for a slightly indirect reason) and I know it's not his in-game height of 5'8". Not to mention, if I screwed up on what would be an appropriate weight to go with the height I'll mention, feel free to correct me. I'm not a dude, so the weight might be a little low for the VIII/KH hybrid Squall I have here. (I reiterate that there is a sort-of point to it, I swear. Haha.)

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter LIV – Before the Dawn Breaks**

-

_We'll do it all,  
Everything, on our own,  
We don't need anything, or anyone,  
If I lay here, if I just lay here,  
Would you lie with me and just forget the world? _

_**-Snow Patrol, Chasing Cars.**_

-

All throughout this ordeal, he'd been telling himself over and over again not to make comparisons, faltering every so often and mentally berating himself for doing so. Now, as hard as it was to admit, he couldn't deny the comparisons any longer and it was scaring him. He knew the kind of wreck he'd become after his own ordeal and he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to return the favour she'd done him not only a few weeks ago. Sure, he'd try helping her eventually get her life back on track, but the thought of failure...it was nerve-wracking, almost overwhelming when the possibility felt so real. Still, he pushed the thought to the back of his mind; he couldn't afford such notions now.

It was not long after Rinoa had started to sob again when a pair of nurses scurried to her mother's room from the nearby elevator. One of them took notice of them sitting there and of him holding her as she cried so it came to no surprise that when they both came out a few minutes later, she was the one of the two who stopped to talk to them. Squall slowly loosened his embrace so Rinoa could freely talk to the woman as well but it was to no avail; the instant he tried to let go, she gripped him even tighter to compensate.

Luckily, the blonde, pixie-like nurse took this as a unspoken cue and more-or-less directed her questions to him instead. Squall assumed she'd seen enough of this behaviour before to know to make such a quick transition.

"Have there been any arrangements for her to stay anywhere?" she asked him at whisper-level, "I'm afraid we haven't been able to contact her uncles to inform them of Fury and Julia's passing."

He solemnly nodded. "She's going to stay at my house until-" Squall had to pause for a moment to gasp for air; Rinoa had managed to strengthen her already vice-like grip on him, "—things are settled. ...Is there anything else I should know?"

"Not at the moment, I'm afraid. I would assume that Rinoa will probably receive information about anything concerning wills, guardianship or any other legal matters within the next few days so you might want to visit her house for phone messages or mail."

"That shouldn't be a problem." he told her. "So...is it alright to leave or does anything has to be taken care of first?"

She shook her head. "No, it should be alright to leave. The hospital will call if there's anything that comes up."

As Squall was just about to try to get Rinoa to let go of him so they could leave, she suddenly started mumbling into his coat.

"…_What about…their funeral?_" she asked. Squall felt a pang course through his body; he hadn't even thought of that. Thankfully, the nurse broke the silence on the matter when he wasn't sure that he could.

"Don't worry about it now dear." she gently told her as Rinoa had unburied herself from his jacket. "Once we get in contact with your uncles, I'm sure they can help with that."

"…_But they don't…you won't be able to get in touch with them_…" she whispered before regaining some of her voice's natural volume, "Both my uncles are high-ranking Galbadian military officers and…last I heard…from my dad, they're both off on an excavating mission someplace in Centra with no number they can be reached at."

Squall furrowed his brows a little. "Are you sure about that Rinoa?"

"I'm positive. They won't be back for awhile." she asserted. Rinoa must have sensed something more in his posture because she continued shortly after. "I know it sounds odd to send two high-ranking officers to something like that but…believe me, they're there. My dad…he used to be in the army with them until he had enough of the stupid and unnecessary regulations and resigned."

"Alright." Squall shifted his sights back to the nurse again. "I'll...figure something out. Thank you for your help."

With a curt nod, the blonde let them be by themselves once more. The instant she was out of earshot, Rinoa buried herself in his coat once more. She had her face to the side this time; he could see more tears threatening to fall.

"…_I'm sorry I'm making things so complicated now._" she quietly apologized to him.

"It's fine," he told her, looking down on her tear-streaked features, hopelessly wishing he could have been able to do something more, "…I had my mom go through the same thing. I'll have an idea of what to do."

"You…don't have to be your mom."

"You're right; I don't have to but....I'll be damned if I'll let you go through what I did alone." he poignantly countered. From his vantage point, he could see the left corner of her lips anchor downwards into a pained frown.

"Please...don't bring up your past like that. What...you went through...it's so much sadder. I don't think it should be compared to what's...happened now." she whispered. "I'll...I'll get over this...in time. I know my mom's going to be watching over me so...all I need is time."

Squall bit back a frown. _Sure, time heals but...it doesn't erase, _he morosely thought.

"Alright, I won't." he said in agreement, looking away as he said the words. "Did you...want to go?"

"I guess so..." she trailed off, "...we don't have much of a choice, right?"

"No, you do." he calmly told her, regaining the courage to look her in the eyes once more. "If you need more time...I'll be here."

After he had said this to her, she managed something vaguely reminiscent of a smile.

"I...appreciate you offering but, if I go in there again, I might not come back out before dawn. ...I've said my goodbyes so I think it would be best if we just went to your house." Stifling an errant sniffle, something must have caught her eye as she was pointing at something at his feet. "Where did you...get those crutches from?"

Relieved for the distraction, he was more than happy to oblige – that is, if one could ever be considered _happy_ in this particular circumstance.

"The receptionist noticed the limp I had and sent me to another room to get it looked at." he began to explain. "After the nurse there put some compress bandages, she told me that I'd...aggravated it enough to warrant some minor surgery if I don't take it easy soon. She wouldn't let me leave until I signed out some medical forms to loan the pair of crutches I have now. The cane you gave me is being kept for me behind the receptionist's desk."

"...Sounds like you won't be...able to go to school for a bit."

He nodded. "Yeah, I won't be, not this week. I'll have to dropout of my advanced physical education class and the tournament's not even an option anymore."

"...I'm sorry for ruining all of this for you." she sniffled, letting even more tears freely cascade down her cheeks.

"Don't be." he told her. "If anything, it was the push I needed to do what I should have done in the first place."

"...Why do you say that?" she quizzically asked.

"I never liked the class to begin with but...I was just too stubborn to leave, knowing that it's what the others would have wanted. Not that it matters anymore-" he admitted, "This is more than a valid reason to drop the class without getting more ridicule."

"...They were teasing you?"

He was almost glad for her bemused stare. While the tears hadn't fully stopped streaming down her face, at least he knew that on some level, he was providing her with some kind of distraction.

"...Not so much teased than being singled out." he clarified. "Apparently, they found it amusing to appoint me as the class whipping boy because of my lack of height."

"I...have a hard time believing you were the shortest."

He shrugged. "We were measured and weighed the first day to figure out everyone's daily energy requirements. It had something to do with the dietary log we were supposed to keep for the class for some reason, but whatever. All I remember is that the teacher offhandedly mentioned that I was the only one in that class under six feet. Needless to say, it snowballed from there once he conveniently let it slip that I was also the lightest."

"That's...stupid." she added. "You're not short or tiny. I don't see why they'd do that."

"Doesn't matter; five-ten's not six feet and one-sixty isn't one-eighty. As far as they were concerned, I was a runt."

"Well...at least...you can be thankful that you didn't take this course last year." she offered - Squall quirked a brow at this. If it were any other time, he would have waited for her to elaborate and thought nothing of it. Today was another story, however. Thankfully, she did build upon her comment. "...You looked like you were shorter and thinner in some pictures that I...assume were from last year."

Oh. Right. Just nod and agree.

"...I didn't realize I was."

_...Smooth, just smooth._

She nodded. "...You were." she reiterated. "There were a couple of pictures of you in with a winter coat on where you looked very wiry and...in some later pictures with your sister, you...look like you do now."

"Sorry...I haven't seen any of those pictures. I'm not sure what you mean."

She looked down for a moment, her bottom lip being to tremble terribly out of nowhere, both things happening for a reason he couldn't logically place other than her parents' untimely demise must have been hitting her again. The tears came back again, wracking her body almost violently this time. Slowly, but surely, looked up. Her breath was now coming in waves.

"._..I need you...to distract me._" she softly spoke, her voice's hollow timbre almost haunting him. "Talking about something else isn't working. I feel like I'm...going to die if I don't get my mind off of my parents. I'm...so numb."

_Hyne,_ he scarcely thought, _what if she's having a panic attack? I won't be able to flag down a nurse fast enough. I have to diffuse this now, before she loses it completely. _

"Rinoa..." he began in a calm, almost sedate tone, "...no distraction is ever going to be enough to completely take your mind off of this. Trust me; you'll get through this with some sleep. I felt exactly like this the first night. You're not going to die."

"I don't know Squall, I..._please_, you've got to do something. I...don't think I can...take this...anymore." she frantically implored.

"Do you want me to get a nurse to give you something to take off the edge?" he asked. She shook her head.

"No, I just want you. No one else." she said.

With very little at his disposal, he tried enveloping her in his arms once more. Though the arms of the chairs made things slightly awkward, the sound of her sobs lessened considerably.

...And then she broke free, only to place herself on his lap and curl herself into a ball. How she managed to do so without knocking over the crutches leaning on the side of his chair or aggravating his foot was clearly beyond him.

A sharp breath escaped from the corner of his mouth — _God_ was she ever warm. If this was any other time, context or place-

_...Stop it._

He chose to bury that thought deep, opting to wrap his arms around her like he had seconds before instead. But...that thought wasn't going to let itself be buried that easily. As much as he'd like to deny it altogether, she _had_ been right earlier tonight when she'd made that guess about his eyes turning blue — _'overwhelmed'_ was just a polite umbrella term for it. Frankly, he was afraid of what she'd think if he'd answered her straight and even more scared of the fact that these thoughts had manifested themselves in his mind to start with. It wasn't even a month ago when he'd accidentally gone overboard with what was meant to be a test because he'd pictured Iris in his head. How the fuck could things have changed so quickly?

He was more than disgusted with himself right now.

He always knew that there would be a time where he'd be able to truly move on when he allowed himself to pursue this relationship with Rinoa, but having these thoughts permeate his skull this fast was another thing. As charming as Rinoa was and had especially been earlier today, there was something gravely wrong with this picture.

Iris had died carrying _his _child because of his foolishness for God sakes. He should have stopped his late girlfriend's advances that fateful night in late December when he distinctly remembering that she'd been on some antibiotics lately, but he hadn't. The thought that the aforementioned meds could have interfered with the birth control he knew she was on hadn't even occurred to him until after the fact. Given what he'd gone through, these thoughts he found himself fleetingly thinking tonight should have not been thought of for a decade, not just a measly six months like he had. No amount of sexual frustration could have ever made this justifiable.

He closed his eyes. _If only she knew what kind of person was truly holding her, _he morbidly thought, _I bet she wouldn't want to be anywhere near me._

"_Please....don't cry. I'm—_" Hiccough_._ "—_already crying enough for the...both of us._"

_That was Rinoa's voice,_ he realized, _please let this be my imagination._

Slowly, he reopened his eyes. All he could see was the warm and glistening big brown eyes of hers under his chin. He felt something, albeit miniscule, slide down his cheek. Squall had no choice but to resign to the fact that this wasn't imagination, not when she raised a hand to his cheek to wipe what little was there away.

Hyne, she's been through all this and found the will and energy to care for him? Could it be that she was some kind of angel and he simply wasn't aware of this? She _did_ have wings on her back, after all.

"...Sorry." he murmured. "Things have been—...I've been thinking too much."

"I...think we're in the same boat then." she tried to josh. Her tone and current state was ill-suited for joking, however.

"Yeah...I suppose." he half-heartedly agreed. "Alright. Let's...go home before it gets any later."

She didn't budge from her spot on his lap, however.

"Could you...do me a favour?" she whispered; without hesitation, he nodded, "When...we get home, could you..."

Her voice had petered out again and left her question hanging, but, something had still managed to catch his ear all the same.

_Home. _She hadn't used the word house like the last time.

"Could you..." she reprised a few seconds later, "...let me stay home with you while you're resting your foot this week?"

"That's...no problem." he answered, somewhat caught off guard. "...I don't think anyone would expect you to go this week."

"...Yeah." she trailed off. "Um, if it's possible...I don't want people to know."

"That...might be a hard secret to keep."

"I...don't care." she said almost defiantly, clearly trying to keep the tremors at bay. "I just don't want people walking on eggshells around me just because my parents are...gone. I've...I've already been treated like an alien once. I don't want it to happen all over again."

"I understand what you mean but...Cid's going to have to know. You won't be able to get way with my mother covering you with some kind of excuse for your absence. He's going to wonder why."

"Okay. I'll let Cid know, but...no one else if I can help it."

"Fair enough. We'll...play this by ear but I'll leave you to decide who should and shouldn't know."

"...Thank you."

"It's...nothing." he shrugged. He didn't have the heart to tell her that it was a foolish idea to keep people out, especially after knowing what it had been like to take the same path. "Are you...ready to leave now?"

"Almost." she replied, inexplicably turning a faint shade of pink. "I...didn't tell you the real favour I wanted to ask of you yet."

"I had a feeling you hadn't." he commented, somewhat relieved to know that he hadn't looked into something that didn't exist. On the other hand, he almost wished he had; he was very well aware of the guilt and danger involved with saying no to a request from someone in this state.

When she took a deep breath, he could feel the movements of her body against his ribs.

"I...don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight." she told him. Remembering his earlier words, he picked up on what she was really saying.

"In other words," he began to infer, "...you're asking for a distraction."

She shyly nodded, taking one of his hands in hers. "...Could you?"

The truth was that he was dead tired and utterly spent in every sense of the word right now. The reality was that he didn't have the luxury of telling her just that. Then she unknowingly reminded him of how he hated to see those beautiful brown eyes of hers carry so much pain and, just like that, any will to deny her of her somewhat-ambiguous wish went to hell.

"...I'll try to think of something." he promised her, wracking his brain for an idea at the same time. "I don't know...would you want to read some laughably-bad creative writing assignments?"

"Um, not...really." she admitted. "Embarrassing yourself...wasn't what I had in mind."

With his lids getting heavier and reason beginning to escape him, it took all Squall had not to blurt out, _what __**did **__you have in mind?_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Sorry for the three week delay. For the past two weeks, I've been working seven days a week and it doesn't help that I have no energy to begin with. Yeah, it's not as bad as it sounds because working on the weekend is completely voluntary but, it's tax season in an accounting co-op. I think you'll have an idea of why it's good work a little extra to (try) to keep on top of things.

_Catch you all later,_

_-Emerald-Latias_


	56. Chapter LV – Broken Music Box Doll

**Author's Notes – **Hiya! I'm just trying my best to keep plugging away at this thing as always, though I'm seriously thinking of taking a betting pool of when this fic will be over (after all, betting is always fun when you stand to lose no money, hehe). I honestly have no idea and I wouldn't be surprised if this thing went over eighty chapters. Hooray for another potentially-skewed estimation from yours truly. We all know that because I said eighty that I've probably jinxed myself to go past that.

Oh and, this chapter's back to normal Rinoa-centric POV. Just thought I'd give you the heads up.

On another related note, can we try to shoot for roughly 15 percent (10 reviews) of all those who have this fave'd? I think we can reach that, right? I think that would be reasonable. I mean, all it takes is ten of you to spend a few minutes of your time afterward to say the random things you may or may not like from the chapter. Hell, I'll be more than a happy camper if eight people did that.

To those of you who have left me a few kind words last time, I really, really, really, really, really, really appreciate it. The reviews for last chapter were really encouraging and I'm **_not_** going to lie; my face lit up from them all.

_Edit (30/3/09) - Thanks for pointing out that I'd accidentally omitted the 'not'. I giggled at that too. What can I say? I think faster than I type. :)_

On a random note, I had a dream after posting the last chapter that I'd received a review saying that guys don't use ratios and the reviewer said Iris shouldn't have been used because it didn't exist in the VIII world, adding that it was overplayed back in the day because they were a mallrat. Er....yeah, I think I've been working too much.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter LV – Broken Music Box Doll**

-

_Don't go out the same way you did the last time,  
You'll break when you fall,  
Don't make the same mistakes you did all over,  
You've got to believe in yourself this time.  
_

_**-3 Doors Down, This Time.**_

-

It had been a little after two by the time they got home in one piece. The drive had been peaceful if not eerily quiet. They were able to take the faster main roads after deducting that the emergency crews had plowed the roads clear because of the immediate difference upon driving out of the hospital's parking lot.

Regardless of the semantics, the blame could have been easily placed on her shoulders for the lack of noise in general on the trip back. She hadn't been in the mood to talk about superficial matters, focused on making sure she breathed in and out during the trip to his house – her new home. Still, in spite of this behaviour, she did not regret refusing any sedatives the hospital could have offered. She wasn't having a manic episode, quite the contrary — she was having an episode because she couldn't feel anything and it scared her to death. The numbness made her feel like she was locked inside her own body, trapped even. She'd convinced herself that a sedative would have only magnified this paranoia. Rinoa had been slightly apprehensive in telling him in the hospital, but the favour she wanted to ask of him had to do with this dilemma; she wanted him to get her to feel again. What that might have entailed, she wasn't sure of and that's what scared her the most.

Now that they had entered through the house's threshold, she hoped that he had thought of something suitable on the way back. God forbid if it was left up to her.

She didn't remember putting away her coat and boots but the plain fact that they weren't on her and that she felt like she was freezing clearly suggested she had. She stole a fleeting glance at him, only to have it inadvertently turn into a lingering gaze. She didn't know what had exactly made the sight of him taking his sole boot off so interesting but, she resigned to the fact that nothing seemed to make much sense anymore as of late.

Once he had taken the damned thing off, she darted her eyes away from him, opting to look at her own socks. _Weird,_ she scarcely thought;_ I didn't realize they were mismatched._

"Rinoa?" She looked back up. "I'm going downstairs for the night so...if there's something you want me to do on this floor, let me know now."

She shook her head. "No, I'm...okay." she replied. "Is there...anything I can carry for you?"

"No, I...don't have anything."

On that slightly awkward note, he began to walk down the hallway. Still standing in place, Rinoa shifted her feet a little.

"Am I....allowed to come downstairs too?" she timidly inquired, hands fidgeting ever so slightly. He stopped walking and pivoted to face her on his good foot.

"It's fine. I'm only changing my socks." he told her. Right after, a tangent must have sprung to mind. "...Did you need something to sleep in? I've...got some old clothes if you wanted to change."

She shrugged. If this had been any other time, she would have jokingly answered with a, '_Depends. Are they washed?_' or some other smart-aleck response, but not tonight. It wouldn't feel right, not with the tumultuous amount of thoughts clustered in her head, not even including those concerned with her parents' accident.

"Sure."

"Alright. I'll try to find something close to your size."

"Squall...You don't have to go through all that trouble to find something close. Whatever you have is fine." she told him. "I don't want you to strain your foot any more just because you're wasting your time looking for clothes. If you want...if you tell me in which drawer to look, I can pick something out myself."

"That could work."

After that, they began to walk down the hallway together, albeit a tad slowly. Rinoa didn't mind the pace but it was the echoing of his crutches in midst of the shadowy hallway that was starting to get to her. It was irrational to fear the dark, especially when the kitchen's window was letting in a fair bit of moonlight to illuminate their path but...it didn't help quash her anxiety. She needed to hear his voice. She needed some kind of conversation now that they weren't in the car with fully-lit streets and the snow refracting the street lamps' light.

"So...are you going to stay in your bed?" she asked.

"No. Desk chair." he answered back. "I'll fall asleep if I so much as sit in my bed."

"I see." She almost trailed off after that exchange but she forced herself to maintain some kind of dialogue between them. "If you're tired, don't...don't stay up on my account. I'm sure I can try to sleep too. It's...good to catch as much as I can... right?"

He stopped. Not because of what she said but rather to find a way to go downstairs safely with his crutches.

"Forcing yourself to-" He took a step with his good foot on the first step, trying to set the crutches on the step below so he could hop onto the next one in the same fashion with his bad foot in midair. She took a single step too, anxiously waiting for what he had to say, knowing that he was unfortunately well-versed on the subject. "-go to sleep will only drive you mad when you can't. It-" He took another step, doing so more gracefully this time around. She took yet another tiny step down. "—won't be a big deal for me to stay up if you need company."

"...Maybe we could compromise?" she offered after he'd taken the last four steps in quick succession, now firmly grounded on the basement floor.

The moonlight coming from the sole window behind him in the basement's mini-hallway illuminated him in a way she couldn't begin to describe properly. The shadows cast on his face accentuated his weary features, making her notice how handsome he was in a beautifully-flawed way at the moment. She'd temporarily lost her train of thought but as luck would have it, he took no heed of this pause.

"How about we...lie down in your bed and if you start drifting off before I do, I'll...nudge you or something."

"Sounds alright."

"...Thank you."

Almost unwittingly, Rinoa had begun to lean forward to follow up her thanks with a small peck on the cheek but caught herself in time, albeit awkwardly - she had done so too late to mask the subconscious attempt. The only consolation in all of this was that the minor blush spread across her face was hidden under the veil of darkness.

After she had reached his bedroom door with a few long strides, Rinoa waited for him at its threshold, having already opened the door for the both of them. Once he finally made it a few seconds later, he didn't go in first as she had thought he would, gesturing that she went first after he'd coiled an arm past the frame to flick the room's light switch on. Rinoa was almost shocked when she saw that his normally-immaculate room was in a state of disarray. She turned around as soon as he nudged the door shut.

"Tornado...go through here?" she quietly whipped, not really intending to have it come out like it had. The contradictory tone earned her something in kind.

"No, just rain."

"...Did you just...pun?"

He shrugged. "...I would have said a squall came through here but my mother was probably responsible for this mess when she was looking for something for me today."

Rinoa blinked, standing there utterly dumbfounded. Either she was going mad or something was gravely wrong with him.

"...Is it working?" he asked. When she blinked again, he filled her in. "The puns were meant as a distraction."

"Hm? —_**Oh.**_" she mumbled. "I see."

"Yeah," he began, rubbing his eyes a little, "I haven't gone mad...yet."

"I...was worried for a moment, you know."

"I...figured that much." he pointed out before walking past her to get to his drawer. When he opened a drawer to fish out a pair of clean socks, she took a few steps to be at his side.

"...Which drawer has the old clothes?"

"Middle."

A second later, she opened it with a little too much vigour; the drawer had had collided with his lower stomach.

"Sorry." she gasped. "Didn't know it...was on a wheeled track inside."

"Don't be." he told her, looking quite unfazed as he met her gaze. "I didn't feel much anyway."

"Oh, okay." she mumbled, diverting her attention to the task of finding something to sleep in. It proved to be an excellent distraction – she had a hard time telling what she had and hadn't already looked at. Everything he seemed to own in this drawer was either black or varying stages of faded black. _Literally._

By the time she'd found something, he had not only found a new pair of socks but had already put them on and was now in the process of putting the old socks away in the hamper beside the drawer.

"...Find something?"

She nodded back. "Some black shorts and a shirt."

"You need to be more specific. Black...describes ninety percent of my wardrobe." he deadpanned. Rinoa managed what felt like the impossible right now – a singular chuckle. Even still, it felt hollow and somewhat insincere.

Now holding out the set in front of him, she elaborated a little more. "By the looks of it, I have a pair of black board shorts and a faded black gym shirt with a Balamb Garden logo on the right side."

"If it's the pair I'm thinking of, the shorts are going to fall off of you."

Rinoa cocked a brow, still holding them out. "They...don't look that big."

"Trust me, they are." he reiterated, grabbing the shorts from her grasp. "I can still wear these."

She shot an odd look at him and took back the shorts. "No way."

"I'm not lying, I still can." he repeated. "I don't even know what those are doing in that drawer."

Rinoa shook her head after looking at the shorts and then back at him. "Either my eyesight's...really bad or you've got hips that can shrink on command. Either way...I need proof. Try them on."

"Can't." he chimed back. "I'll aggravate the foot."

"Alright then...I'll try them on and if they...don't fall down...I—" She muted herself in mid-sentence. "...This is another distraction, isn't it?"

"This isn't going to work if you catch on this fast." he dryly commented with a hint of forced— dare she even think of this adjective to describe him —_ mirth_.

Out of nowhere, she sighed. "Thank you for trying but...distracting me with silly things...it's not exactly working. I mean...it does for a small moment, but...my reactions feel off. Even that chuckle was off. Hyne...I don't know. I feel like I'm a broken music box doll that's not singing the song it's supposed to when someone's done winding the crank. ...I think I just...I just need to go to bed."

After the last of her words had left her lips, he looked as if he was awkwardly frozen in place. On some level, she secretly hoped that she'd hit the nail on the head as far as what he felt back in August. That way, awkwardness would be from her apt description and that it would be a matter of a second or two before he'd bring up a solution based his experiences to help her.

"I..." He stopped right then. "...I'll leave the room so you can change."

He hobbled out of the room soon after and she was left to wallow in her own thoughts as she changed. Taking off her blouse, she resigned to the fact that he couldn't help her for everything. That and how maybe, just maybe, it was unfair to expect him to fix her back to normal just because he'd gone through something similar. Keeping her bra on, she slipped his shirt on and proceeded to putting on the shorts.

While they hadn't fallen off like he had _'claimed'_ they would when he was trying to distract her, they had sunk low enough for a good inch of her underpants to be showing. Even when she let the shirt's hem fall down naturally after tying the shorts' drawstring waist, it wasn't quite long enough to hide this completely; she could still see a sliver of underwear between the shirt and the shorts. Even still, she didn't care. It would be dark, he would be too tired to notice anyway and quite frankly, she didn't have the energy to pull something else out of the drawer.

And so, she walked to the door he had closed minutes ago and flicked the light switch off. Opening the door soon after, she poked her head out past its frame, slightly disappointed; he wasn't out in the hallway like he'd expected. She waited in the same position for a little while and fortunately, it was less than a matter of a minute before he came out in a set of semi-makeshift pyjamas comprised of navy-blue bottoms and a thin white cotton t-shirt. He didn't try to distract her by saying anything remotely out of character or even anything at all when she opened the door wide for him however.

She almost wished she hadn't imploded and said what she'd said earlier so he might have mentioned something about her light blue underwear sticking out or even an, _'I told you so,'_ to lessen the edge of this silence. But no, all she could do at this moment was play the courteous doorman to his invalid and wonder if it was ever going to be any better.

Then she'd done it. She had broken the silence by the time he was a footstep in front of her. She couldn't take anymore of this...this...numbness.

"...I thought I would be hearing, '_I told you so,_' by now." she choked out. Tears began to fill her eyes, clouding her vision.

She hated the human fire hydrant she'd become tonight, but...she couldn't help it. She was confused...she wanted to feel something and yet the reprieve had yet to come. He wasn't helping her, he didn't know how to help her and....God damn it, why was she putting herself into his hands completely? Why was she even blaming him? He was only human.

A loud '_clack_' noise interrupted her reverie-slash-angst-fest. Her knee-jerk reaction was to look down to see if he'd dropped one or both of his crutches. She only saw the small pools of saline near her feet when her gaze anchored downward, only to notice that his crutches were both still firmly secured underneath each arm when she looked back up. A moment had passed before she even thought about reciprocating his gaze.

"They haven't fallen to the floor. I can't say I told you so." he quietly told her in the doorway. Right after, he'd done something she would have never expected – he wiped away the tears previously meandering down her cheeks with his one hand.

The simple action of getting close to her, making them feel like two interlocking pieces in the frame's puzzle...she appreciated this so very much. At the very least she knew that her earlier words hadn't scared him off completely, that he didn't think of her as some kind of repellent and hormonal monster. She had to show him her appreciation as it was the polite thing to do, she thought. That, and write off her earlier mental tirade as delirium. After all, she knew that he could help her; all she just had to do was to say something, anything and not leave it to guesswork on his part. Maybe that'd fix things, she mused, maybe even going as far as reckoning that it would.

She took a step forward to hug him tight and close. The force of the hug made him stumble backwards and essentially pinned him to the frame since he would have to drop the crutches to effectively wriggle himself free. The infernal and aforementioned supports acted as double-edged swords of sorts though; he wouldn't be able to escape or hug her back properly without abandoning them.

Even still, Rinoa persevered.

Since he didn't seem like he was resisting, she moved herself even closer, moving her grip around him higher so she could comfortably lay against him in hopes that the short distance would make up for the handicap of the crutches. While her head pressed against his chest, he didn't move to wrap his arms around her, not even partially. She looked up, only to see that she'd left a few lingering teardrops on the front of his shirt.

Once again, the moonlight reflected against his features in the most beautiful way and she couldn't look away. She couldn't deny the kind of distraction she'd been wanting all along anymore; the only one that even had a chance of truly taking her mind off things for longer than a second.

Rinoa quietly withdrew her arms from the hug and looped them around his neck, bringing it down far enough so she could begin to kiss him on the lips. She was met with no resistance but with next to no reciprocation either; it felt reminiscent of the first time she'd ever kissed him.

_He's just tired like he said,_ she told herself, _so I just need to...try harder._

She stood on the tips of her toes so every curve of her body melded with his for more incentive, kissing him even harder. His body was starting to burn like the sun against hers but there were no reactions to be heard of - she was starting to feel like she was kissing an inanimate object that had been tossed in a microwave. Was he resisting? No, how could he be? Certainly not when she was so close – no boy she'd ever been with has ever been able to stay so still like this in this kind of position. Besides, he'd been all for it earlier tonight when she was nowhere _near _as close. This made no sense. He wasn't making sense.

"_...Stop." _a voice she couldn't place had whispered.

_No,_ she thought defiantly,_ I need this distraction._

"_Rinoa._.." He finally pulled away from her one-sided advances. "_-don't...do this to yourself._"

She scrunched her face into a frown. "...No, it's fine Squall. It really is." she countered. "Please...I just need something to get rid of this...this numbness."

Suddenly, the shadows cast on his face from the moonlight weren't so beautiful anymore. "You're going too far for a distraction Rinoa. You're just going to end up hurt yourself more than you think. I...won't have a part of this."

Squall accidentally let both crutches clatter to the ground when tried to fully free himself from her looped arms around his neck. Before he could even think of lowering himself on one foot, Rinoa kindly picked them up for him. Giving them back was another story however. Standing a good couple of feet away from him, he was stuck leaning against the frame of the door on an awkward angle.

"That tactic's not going to work." he warned her. "I didn't have those all afternoon and I can do without them now."

With the crutches in hand, Rinoa walked to his bed, deposited them there and walked back. After flicking the light switch back on, she took a few more steps to stand right in front of him in the doorway again.

"I'll give them back to you eventually. I just want them out of the way for now." she quietly told him, courageous enough to look at him with the newfound lighting. "...I had a feeling that your eyes were all blue again."

He sighed. "...And I suppose you're bringing this up because you're aware that I was lying earlier tonight?"

She nodded. "I know that it's...closer to what I said."

"Well, don't hold it against me. It's not a signal to go ahead." he moodily countered. "I'm...just not that different from anyone else put in that position, unfortunately."

"You shouldn't have to apologize for that." she pointed out. "You're human, I'm human...it's normal."

"No it's not." he blurted out.

After recovering from an awkward pause, he stopped leaning against the wall. When Rinoa saw that he wasn't taking any measures to avoid putting pressure on his bad foot, she tried to come closer to make him lean against the wall again to no avail. The instant she moved forward, he grabbed both of her hands and made them rest at her sides. At this close proximity, she could see that the pain was making its way into his expression, causing intermittent twitches around the corners of his mouth and his pupils to dilate.

If she hadn't known any better, she would have said that he looked absolutely mad.

"Listen. If I were anyone else, I would have no problems in accepting that it's normal behaviour but with someone with my past, it is _not_ normal." he told her sternly, releasing his grip on her hands. "And I'll be damned if something were to happen to you."

"...Something bad doesn't always have to happen." she calmly argued. "I'm not a bad luck magnet 24/7...despite everything."

After this, he looked her straight in the eye and said, "I...can't take that risk. Not when there's no guarantee that this'll even help."

His words were clearly pained and almost poetic in a sense. Rinoa appreciated the fact that, in spite of his objections, she could tell that he was genuinely willing to do whatever to help her through the suffering. But the sad truth was that if she truly wanted to, she knew she could break him if she tried hard enough – she'd already done it once before and Tristan had been slightly more reluctant than him and about half as tired. A question remained though. Was she voluntarily willing to go ahead with the potential remedy bearing so much emotional and physical risk?

The twisted part of her wanted their respective histories to repeat and to combine in a more positive light to make up for their separate tragedies while the more logical part of her realized that another screw up like this could very well kill him.

Armed with this knowledge, she did the first thing that came to mind in midst of this mental cocktail of turbulent emotions and logic.

She walked over to his bed and got his crutches to give them back to him. Without a word, she flipped the switch behind him off again and retreated to the far side of his bed. Soon after, she smothered herself in the covers, scarcely hoping it would be enough to ward off the empty and hollow coldness plaguing her body now.

When the noise in the background faded minutes later, she felt the mattress sink and the cause of its sinking call out her name ever so softly. She turned on her other side, just to see him sitting there with most of his body facing her. He drew a calm breath and sat himself beside her on the right side of the bed.

"...I'm sorry if what I said was a little harsh. It's just so...it's so damn hard to say no in spite of what you were asking because I...could relate to that hollowness. Because of that...I needed to do what I did before it got even more difficult."

"So...did you...ever ask your mom to do something you shouldn't have?"

He solemnly nodded. "Yeah, I...went through what I had alone because at the time, I...swore up and down that she couldn't help me with this. Unfortunately, she listened and let me be." He took another breath. "Throughout this...I had to keep reminding myself that...what we want now isn't always what we need in the long run."

"Yeah...I know. I was...just being irrational." she finally admitted. "It's just that this numbness...it was and still is driving me mad. I...I was getting more and more angry at myself when nothing you were trying was sticking with me for more than a couple of measly seconds."

"Honestly...I'd be worried if a few of juvenile puns did the trick."

"...I suppose you're right about that." she agreed. At this moment, his eyes held a small glimmer of something within them - a _'something'_ she couldn't even begin to place.

"...You're smiling." he plainly told her. Rinoa instinctively had to feel the corners of her lips with her fingers to check if what he said was true.

And by God, he was right. She _was_ smiling, if only a little.

Moving away her fingertips from her face, she stared at him in awe. "I...I can't believe I just did that...not when it's so..."

"—Don't worry about that." he interjected. "...Moments like these are far and few in between. Don't waste your time in questioning whether it's right or wrong, you'll...never know for sure. Just...trust me on this."

"Alright, I...will." she mumbled, finally letting her eyes close for the night. It was a long while before Rinoa actually fell asleep but it didn't matter. A few moments after their conversation in his bed had ended; he surprised her by quietly whispering in her ear, asking if they could swap places because of his leg. Little did she know he'd asked for the switch so he could wrap his arms around her without his injury getting in the way.

As the coldness ebbed from her body, she felt truly lucky to have him here, watching over her like this. Despite the fact that she was the one with the wings on her back, _he_ was truly the guardian angel between the two of them.

And for that, she was thankful.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Hehe...catch the glaring parallel here between one of the lines from this chapter and the previous one? I hope so because I feel like I've beaten the connection with the prior chapter with an obvious stick here.

Er...yeah. I hope there's such thing as an obvious stick, otherwise I'm just making things up. Aah, I suppose that can't be all that bad, I mean _I am _a fiction writer first and foremost after all, _eh?_

_*Gets hit with an obvious stick*_

_Owww...I get it, it's a bad joke alright! Owwww._

_-Emerald-Latias_


	57. Chapter LVI – Little Brother

**Author's Notes – **Heads up - this one's going to be Squall-centric cause...well...the day has finally broken in this chapter (sorry guys, no sleepwalking or break-of-dawn make-out sessions) and it'll add a whole different dynamic to things. And as you can maybe tell from previous chapters, Rinoa's basically entrusted him with a lot here. So...yeah, he's basically her caretaker at this point.

Anyways, just see for yourselves here. I'm sure it'll be more interesting than to have me bore you with the details.

P.S – for those of you who haven't gone to university or college, Reading Week is basically the equivalent to Spring Break....though it happens in February (or at least mine did).

P.P.S – If there are any spelling mistakes/typos in this, I apologize. I've been trying to get this up for the past few days but my work's increasingly longer hours have been forcing me to put it off. I just want this up, so if there are any glaring errors, I'll probably catch them within the next few days.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter LVI – Little Brother**

-

_We've tried to wash our hands of all of this,  
We never talk of our lacking relationships,  
And how we're guilt-stricken, sobbing with our heads on the floor,  
We feel through the ice when we tried not to slip, we'd say,  
I can't be held responsible,  
'Cause she was touching her face,  
I won't be held responsible,  
She fell in love in the first place.  
_

_**-The Verve Pipe, The Freshmen.**_

-

When Squall woke up, it wasn't a surprise to see Rinoa's sleeping form facing him in lieu of the mattress's edge. As the day's rays crept through the semi-closed blinds of the room's sole window, the memories of last night crept through his mind. It had been a long night filled with her tossing and turning in his arms, next to no sleep between the two of them and the sweltering conditions in the room. The instant he'd laid down last night, he'd realized that his mother must have swapped his sheets and bedding for the warmer set earlier that day.

It wouldn't have posed a problem on any other day but considering that Rinoa was right there with him, he was wearing more than he normally would have to bed...it was a bit much to fall asleep comfortably. Judging by the wristwatch he'd forgotten to take off last night, he had four hours of sleep tops. But it didn't matter. She was asleep now and that was all that mattered. He could take a nap later if push came to shove if overdosing on caffeine wasn't enough to keep him going. Right now, he just needed to clear his head from this foggy state of mind he was in. And that would require peeling off the bed sheets off and getting out of bed altogether.

With as much grace as he could muster, which happened to rival a blinded T-Rexaur's at the moment, Squall slowly inched his way towards the foot of the bed, desperately trying to avoid waking her up at all costs. The minutes of toil, sharp pains and sacrifice spent towards this endeavour paid off in the end; Rinoa was still sound asleep by the time his feet had touched the floor and rounded-slash-hobbled around its corners to retrieve his crutches placed on the floor near her. After he gathered a pair of stone-wash jeans and a steel blue long-sleeved shirt to change into for the day, Squall left the room as silently as he could, hoping that she'd still be asleep by the time he'd re-enter the room.

Once he was outside of the room and shut the door as softly as he could, Squall made the novice mistake of looking in the direction of the window, nearly blinding himself from the sun's rays - it was a miracle that his cell phone hadn't slipped out of his jeans' pocket when he had them upside down to shield himself from the light.

Regardless, the phone was in one piece and hadn't made the racket he so sorely wanted to avoid so he carried on as if nothing happened and found himself inside the bathroom after a few purposeful crutch-aided strides.

Closing the door, he hobbled to the other side of the small room to sit on the closed toilet seat for stability. Setting down his crutches, he began by discarding the white cotton tee he'd been wearing but found himself too preoccupied with the pair of jeans to simply follow through and change into the long-sleeved shirt.

He'd purposely picked the jeans because he knew it was the pair he'd last left his phone in. But...would he actually call her? It was already past noon so he knew she'd be up, but...she was due to leave from her friend's house in Timber at any time now – what if he'd made her late and miss her train? Unfortunately, he knew that Timber wouldn't get the same freak snowstorm that Balamb did so that option wasn't even a possibility.

Hyne, did he ever hate these dilemmas.

Hyne, did he ever hate her university's _impeccable _timing for this..._'Reading week'_ and making phone calls even more.

With all of these thoughts swirling in his mind, Squall rubbed his eyes in a vain effort to relieve the tension. No such luck. He tried putting on that steel-blue shirt in hopes that it would do something for him. No luck there, either. All it did was mess up his hair even more and remind him of what Rinoa had said about his eyes changing colours. In turn, that reminded him of the source of this whole mess.

_God damn it._ Right now, he wished that his eye colour matched Rinoa's. That way, she wouldn't have said that and he wouldn't be thinking about this yet again. But no, he had to look like a male version of his mother—

_...This is fucking wonderful,_ he sarcastically thought, _just wonderful._

He sighed and just fished the damn phone out of the jeans pooled on his lap. Stalling wasn't going to do him any favours and _Hyne._..he couldn't avoid a repeat of last week's incident. She needed to hear it from him. _He_ needed her to hear it from him.

Flipping his phone open, Squall lazily thumbed his phone's shortcut number for her cell phone and raised his cell to his ear, letting the rings bore into his eardrum. After several rings, she picked up on the other end.

"..._Hello?_"

"Ellone?" he answered back.

"_Little brother, is that you?_" This elicited a slight groan on his end.

"Yeah...it's me." he replied. "You can...stop calling me that, Elle. I'm not—"

"_-that little anymore. I know._" she finished. A soft chuckle was heard afterwards. "_Just because you're bigger than me now doesn't mean that I can't call you that anymore._"

"...Doesn't hurt to try." he shrugged, letting out a small sigh. "Besides, I've been bigger than you for about four years now."

"..._I know, I know._" she warmly reiterated. "_I just can't help myself. I'll always think of you as my little brother._"

In spite of himself, Squall let the corners of his mouth upturn into a small smile. She was right – it was one of those things that would never change between them. ...At least, he hoped not.

"_So_," she began, interrupting his thoughts, "_is there any particular reason you called Squall?_"

"There are....a couple things, actually." he told her. "...Do you...have some time to spare?"

Ellone gave him a firm yes. "_The train's been delayed because of Balamb's weather. I'm just waiting at the station so I have all the time in the world. Are Mom and Dad going to have some trouble picking me up?_"

"No, not really. I'm sure they'll still be able to pick you up later in the afternoon. It stopped snowing late last night."

"_That's good to know,_" she said, "_although you'll have to tell them that it'll be closer to suppertime now._"

"So...you haven't heard from them?"

"_No, last time I talked to them, well...just Mom, was a few days ago. Even then, she didn't say much._"

_Thank God,_ he scarcely thought, fully-well knowing this revelation was merely a future obstacle guised in relief's clothing. Still, it was comforting to know that she didn't hear this from another's mouth.

"_Squall...? Are you still there?_"

"...Yeah, I'm here."

"_You sound like you have a lot on your mind._" she remarked. He almost had to shake his head from the perceptive deduction. Then again, he remembered, she'd always been like that when she was living at home.

"I...sort of do." he admitted. "Do you...remember Rinoa from when you came over last month?"

"_I believe I do. Was she the girl helping you with your homework?_"

"Yeah..."

When his pause grew and grew, she broke the silence for him with a small laugh. "_Let me guess. She's your girlfriend now, isn't she?_"

Even in spite of himself and the fact that she couldn't see him, his face warmed a little. "It's...been a little while."

"_I'm glad for you then._" she told him. "_Do Mom and Dad know about the two of you?_"

"...Yeah, they do and...it's kind of awkward."

"_Well, you can't blame them for that Squall. They think she's your first girlfriend."_

Squall had a bittersweet smirk forming on his lips.

He remembered the first few days when this had all started to happen between him and Iris over a year ago, how he'd ask Ellone what certain actions meant. He vividly recalled his sister's laughter after he'd told her about the latest instances of Iris's _'weird behaviour' _during the final practices before the actual tournament and how she had to practically spell it out for him. He also remembered the warm smile reserved for him after he'd told her that Iris had said yes when he'd asked her if she wanted to do something after school and how it slowly blossomed from there. Later on, he'd made his sister promise not to say anything to their parents because he was waiting for a good time to tell them, but it never came. It didn't matter though, the truth seeped its way through in the end.

Looking back, he practically had to shake his head at what a dunce he'd been at the beginning of all of that. But if there was any consolation to his past self, at least he hadn't repeated the same with Rinoa even though it wasn't a case of her pursuing him.

He broke out of his small reverie with a sigh. "Elle...I wouldn't be calling you if it was that simple."

"_Oh."_

"They know that Rinoa isn't my first girlfriend now and...it feels as if everyone's walking on eggshells because of it."

"_Don't worry, I'm sure it'll get better with time. Did they find out after I visited last month?"_

"Mom knew since August when I was in the hospital and Dad found out last week. Elle...there's something you should know too. It really isn't as simple as keeping it a secret from them._"_

"_Go ahead, I'm listening." _she reassured him.

"Are you...sitting down?"

"_Yes, I am._" she said in a slightly quivering tone. "._..Is something wrong?_"

Ignoring her plea, he just started explaining. God only knew that if he didn't just start, it would never happen.

"You know how Mom told you that I went to the hospital the day before my eighteenth birthday because she thought I had food poisoning?"

"_...It wasn't for that, was it?_" she calmly deduced.

"No, it wasn't. It was for Iris."

"_Did she......get into an accident?"_

_Of course she doesn't want to say the only logical answer to this even though she knows that we more-or-less broke up in April, _he sourly mused. _Hell, even Rinoa did the same thing a month ago. _

"No, it's not that. I...should have told you this earlier, but I.....didn't know how." he told her, punctuating the sentence with another sigh. "...Promise me you won't get mad Elle but on that day, I found out that I'd......made you an aunt but...not for long. Neither survived because the _b-_...she was too premature and Iris didn't make it to a hospital on time."

The line went dead soon after. "...Elle? Hyne, please...don't hate me. I tried to make things work when I first found out, I honestly tried. Iris just....she didn't want to do anything with me."

"_I...I don't know what to say Squall." _she stammered on the other line, breaking her silence. _"I'd...never thought that this day would come and go so soon._"

"...Me neither. It...didn't happen because I was stupid, it was just bad luck-"

"-_Squall...I don't hate you, I'm just...I'm just in shock like anyone in this situation would be. You don't have to explain it to me. Things...life...they just happen._" she reassured. "_...I...just have to ask one thing though._"

"...Sure. Anything."

"_Was there...a reason why most of us didn't know when it happened? ...Other than not being around, I mean._"

"It was...exactly that Elle. You two weren't home when it happened so I didn't want to burden you both with all this if I could help it. But...I'm telling you this now because...well, because I've seen what kind of mess happens when you let someone find out through something else."

"._..Were you talking about Dad?_"

"Yeah. He...found out through a photo last week and...it's what's been making things so awkward here. He knew about Rinoa before this. I...couldn't have that happen all over again."

"_Well, I'm glad I heard it from you. I can't even imagine how hard it must have been to tell me._"

"...It would have been harder to keep it all in Elle." he admitted. "Rinoa's had something horrible happen to her and I don't know if I can help."

"_Please don't tell me she's—_"

"—No." he interjected. "It's nothing like that. I know better. She's in a difficult situation right now and...she's going to be living at our house for a while until she gets back on her feet."

"..._I don't like the sound of that Squall. You sound like you're keeping something from me._"

"I'm not trying to. I'm just having a hard time finding the right words. I don't want to make this seem like an afterthought to add on to my own problems but I can't. Hell, I'm not even sure if she'd be mad at me for even bringing this up to you. I—" He took a slow breath to calm himself down. "...The point is that she's going to be at the house and...I've basically become her guardian for the moment. ...I don't know if I'll be able to help her without screwing it all up somehow."

"_You won't._" she immediately told him in a surprisingly-confident tone.

"...How can you be so sure?" he skeptically asked.

"_You're forgetting that I know how incredibly hard you are on yourself._" she told him. "_You'll be fine Squall. It's just your thoughts weighing you down._"

"I'm being hard on myself for a reason." he countered. "This is another person's life we're talking about, someone who's already settled on having me see her through this. I can't afford to screw this up."

"..._Alright then._ _Does she have any friends that could lend a hand if you're uncomfortable with the situation?" _Ellone offered.

"She does but she doesn't want anyone to know if she can help it."

"_Squall...I don't think I'll be able to be much help unless if you let me know what this is._ _It's a little hard to follow you at the moment._"

He sighed. "...She's clinging onto me because she knows what I just told you and I think that she's under the impression that I'll know exactly what to do." he began to explain. "She...lost both her parents last night and she has no family that we can get in contact with to help out."

"_Hyne, I......I see what you mean but...I'm not so sure how she's going to keep this a secret Squall._"

"Yeah...I know. But if I can buy her a few days or weeks, it might help her cope when people finally know."

"..._Do you truly believe that?_"

He shook his head to no one in particular. "No, not really. I...just can't find it in me to say no to her right now."

"_Squall...you might be setting her up for more problems later by letting her bottle this all in like this._"

"I know that I should but—" A gentle knocking on the door interrupted his sentence. And he knew exactly who it was. "_—I'm sorry but I...have to go._" he near-silently mouthed. "_She's knocking on the door._"

"_Alright. I'll see you both soon. If you need to talk before I'm home, just call._"

"_I will. Thanks._"

With a simple click of the 'End' button, he hid the cell back into its original place in the jean pocket. It was no sooner than he had done that that he'd heard a voice on the other side of the door.

"_...A-are you using the bathroom or changing in there?_" her voice had asked in a frantic hush. Not completely sure of the reason behind the inconsistent tone, Squall decided to answer her plainly.

"I'm changing."

"…_Are you decent enough for me to come in?_"

"Yeah, I am."

Without helping her in the slightest, she opened the door with ease and let herself in. He almost had to shake his head. Funny how he went in here for privacy yet had forgotten the most fundamental step of locking the door.

"Sorry for barging in...it's just that I thought I heard someone come through the front door and I...I didn't want to give your parents the wrong idea by getting caught in your room with your clothes on in case if it's them." she mumbled.

"Don't worry about it. I don't think they'd be quick to assume that conclusion considering what's happened."

A frown manifested itself on her face. "…_But it almost did." _she replied in a tiny voice. _"And…I'm sorry…for that._"

"It's alright." he told her. "I've done my share of things I'm not exactly proud of myself."

"…Like skipping school?"

"Yeah. I did a lot of that." he honestly answered, ignoring the fact that he had no clue how she knew that. "Ellone got me to stop though."

"But…she didn't know."

"You're right, she didn't." he reiterated. "But it didn't stop her from pulling a big sister guilt trip in a rather long phone conversation."

When she cracked a small smile, his heart almost stopped right then and there. "…I keep on forgetting that you're a little brother."

"I don't." he countered, trying to surreptitiously recover from his secret near-heart attack. "…Ellone does too good of a job reminding me every time I'm on the phone with her."

_And I'm glad that she does, _he mentally added. ..._Someone's got to keep me in check in spite of all this that's happening._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Hope that was okay. I just wanted to detour for a bit to show this side of Squall that most people don't even give the light of day in fics.

_Have a nice day,_

_-Emerald-Latias_


	58. Chapter LVII – Son

**Author's Notes – **Just ploddin' through like always. It's still Squall-centric for this one cause as much as I love Rinoa, I'm not about to subject you guys and myself through incessant angst (though it's perfectly understandable concerning her situation). Regardless, I just can't do mopey 24/7 as you've surely noticed by now (because I can't seem to stay serious no matter how hard I try). I don't have a set plan as far as which chapters are going to be Rinoa/Squall-centric but I feel that it's the best plan because I can feel things out instead of forcing myself to do something which is never good.

Hope you enjoy as usual (...or so I assume). Just don't forget to uh...you know. I shouldn't have to spell it out at this point in the game.

R. E. V. _I—_

_*Gets hit with an obvious stick*_

_Owww...._

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter LVII – Son**

-

_Stranger than your sympathy,  
I take these things so I don't feel,  
I'm killing myself from the inside out,  
Now my head's been filled with doubt,  
It's hard to live the life you choose.  
_

_**-Goo Goo Dolls, Sympathy.**_

-

After he left the bathroom so she could change like she'd intended to do from the beginning, Squall was about to go into his room to finish changing too when Rinoa's guess proved to be true. The corner of his eye caught the sight of his father scurrying down the steps and all of a sudden, it was like his own legs had stopped working altogether. As much as he hated to admit it, he froze at the sight of his father. The older man wasn't the one he'd talked to when he asked if Rinoa could stay and God only knew that he was going to hear about it now.

"Squall, can I talk to you privately?"

Now any chance of avoiding this confrontation was officially gone. Standing a few feet away from the older man, his paralysis reduced his reply to a feeble nod.

"Is ...anyone in the laundry room?" his father asked.

Squall wanted to stare at him as if he'd gone mad for thinking that she could have possibly been in a laundry room at ten in the morning but the point would have been rather moot. Glaring at someone in pyjama pants, supported by crutches no less, wasn't exactly the epitome of intimidating.

Squall shook his head instead. "No. No one's in there."

"...Alright, follow me." he said. The teenager couldn't help but sigh as he followed his father's much-faster gait. He knew that the older man only adopted that wistful and lifeless tone whenever it was something grave. Not like he expected anything less but, it wasn't exactly reassuring to know that he'd confirmed his suspicions.

A few moments later and they were both inside the laundry room with the door properly shut. Soon after, Laguna purposely tossed a few freshly-laundered towels lying in a nearby wicker basket on the floor into the dryer and turned the aforementioned machine on. Squall knew that he was doing this solely for the soft rumble that the dryer would provide in an odd attempt to block any eavesdropping, but he said nothing. As stupid as the concept sounded, he was also aware of the fact that it _did _work.

"Were you even listening?" his father asked. Squall merely blinked.

"No, I wasn't." he truthfully replied. "...Couldn't get over the fact that you were using the dryer trick again."

"Squall...I hardly think that this is the time for wise cracks. This is a serious situation."

"I know that it is, you don't have to remind me." the younger man irritably shot back. Laguna sighed.

"Do you have any idea of what you've gotten yourself into? _Y_—" Before the older man could finish, Squall couldn't find it in him to keep a polite silence and let him barrage him in doubt and uncertainty so he cut him off. Hyne only knew it this was confusing enough without a sermon.

"—I'm not leaving her to deal with this by herself." he spat.

"That wasn't where I was going with this Squall." he replied. "I wouldn't expect you to deny her some support but with all that said and done, if I fully understand what your mother said, it's going to be a big responsibility to take care of her if we don't know for how long this will last."

"You're making her seem like a burden." Squall shot back.

"Squall...we're not going to get anywhere if you're going to keep being so defensive."

"Can you blame me?" he replied, "You asked me to talk in private just to more or less tell me what an irrational fool I'm being. Just get it out of your system if that's what you're getting at."

The older man frowned. "It's not that Squall. What I was trying to get at was to make sure you're not taking on this responsibility just to make up for past mistakes."

Squall inadvertently raised both brows before lowering them as he intended to do. "It's not that." he said in an inconsistent rasp. Laguna cast him a knowing look and the teenager had no choice but to look away under the weight of his father's gaze. "I...just don't want her to repeat them."

He looked back, gathering the courage to look Laguna in the eye. Squall didn't have the willpower to keep the guilty and pained expression at bay as he abruptly changed topics, however. "...I'm sorry you didn't hear about her from me. I...realize how insulting it must have been to find out from a photo."

"You have no idea Squall," he began in his rarely-used '_stern father_' voice, "I can't even begin to imagine how you managed to keep that from me and your mother without a peep. I can't even imagine what your little girl would have been like if she were still here or just...anything right now. I know you meant well by apologizing, but it'll be awhile before I'll be able to accept it."

"I understand." Squall quietly said.

"Alright." The older man trailed off for a moment. "...If she's going to stay, we're going to have to establish some ground rules here."

Even though he anticipated some ridiculously conservative and potentially irrational rules, Squall nodded. He knew that he could have his mother appeal these 'rules' later if necessary.

"Rinoa can use Elle's room to sleep but while your sister is down from Esthar, we'll just have her use your bed and you can use the couch. That might also help your foot too."

Squall nodded, feeling no real need to add to this suggestion. He didn't have the heart to admit that minor surgery was starting to look like the only viable option to do any real good right now.

"So," the older man continued, "can you promise that I won't catch you two in the same place when everyone's supposed to be asleep?"

"I would but I don't know about Rinoa. She might not like being alone for awhile."

Laguna grimaced. "If you can, try to find a way. I'm not really comfortable with the idea of you two sharing the same room."

"I'll see what I can do." he mumbled. "...Was there anything else?"

"Uh...I think that might have been it. Well, maybe that and to behave yourselves when we're gone but that's basically the same idea as the first rule. Your mother might think of a few more things, but if she does, I'm sure she'll tell you."

Squall tossed him a look. Whatever it was, he wasn't in the mood to endure the underlying tone to the comments a second time around.

"...You really don't think much of me, do you?" he dryly added, "I have to find some way to plan a funeral with her, tie up any loose ends concerning legal matters and help her get through this and whatever else comes up. It's the last thing on my mind and I'm not about to complicate things while she's in this state."

"I'm sorry, I'd like to trust you but I just can't Squall. You're a good son and I know that you'd keep your word, but you've already surprised me once. I know that your mother told me that it wasn't entirely your fault a year ago but it doesn't change the fact that it still happened. You may be able to control some things but if Rinoa's as shaken up as you say she is; you may never know what you might find yourself considering to help her."

_But that already happened and I didn't let her go through with it, _he thought, _Hyne, I wish I could tell him that but it'd probably hurt as much as it'd help._

For the second time, Squall found himself listlessly conceding to his father's doubts with a subdued, _'I understand.' _He was almost relieved when his father continued talking so quickly afterwards. It helped him focus on something other than the bubbling frustration he felt at the moment.

"I think that's it for now but I have to ask. Where did you get those crutches?"

Ah, at least that was a question he could answer, the teenager mused.

"I got them at the hospital while Rinoa was with her mom." he began. "Whoever it was at the receptionists' desk noticed the limp I had and directed to me a room to bandage it. The nurse there wasn't going to let me leave until I signed out some crutches."

"Sounds like the sprain got a lot worse than what it was when we left at supper time."

"Yeah, Rinoa nearly fainted when she told me the news. I stopped her from falling but I had no choice but to put a lot of weight on the bad foot." He punctuated the sentence by letting out a slow sigh when he saw his father's confused stare._ Looks like I'll have to tell him about the nurse,_ Squall thought to himself. "The nurse who bandaged my foot and forced me to sign out some crutches said that there's a likely that I'll need some minor surgery for it. I probably aggravated it more to answer the door and trying to get Rinoa to the hospital."

"I see." Laguna affirmed. "I'll book an appointment to see someone for that then."

"...Thanks." he sombrely thanked. "We'll...have to book an appointment with Garden to drop the one class I have."

"That second Phys Ed class?"

"Yeah. I can't see me passing that class if I can't take any physical tests for awhile."

"Can't you arrange something with your teacher to take them later or do something to make up for it? I'd hate to see you have to drop out of something when this was outside of your control."

"No. He's not that..._accommodating_." he answered, keeping the more vulgar, yet more apt, descriptions in his head than rolling them off of his tongue. "I'll probably have to get an override to stay in the other class because they're connected."

Laguna frowned. "That sucks."

"Yeah, that does..._suck, _but it's the least of my worries." he added. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Squall already had an idea of who it was and figuring that he was closest to the door and that he and his father were done discussing things, he simply opened the door.

For a second there, he was taken by surprise by the lack of identical stormy-blue eyes looking back at him. He certainly hadn't expected Rinoa to be standing on the other side of the door.

"Um...hi." she mumbled. "Your mom wanted to see you about something in your room."

"...Alright." Squall looked back for a moment. When his father nodded back, he hobbled out of the room with Rinoa and into his own room. He almost did a double take when his mother was nowhere to be found. Just as he was thinking this, Rinoa had closed the door.

"...I thought you needed saving." she softly said from behind him. "I couldn't hear what you were saying but...you were in there for a long time."

"..Thanks." he told her, turning ever so slightly so he could see her face.

She was changed into yesterday's wrinkled clothes, hair messily brushed, skin paler than usual and eyes still puffy and red, looking very much lost. A silent moment had passed between them and he found himself unable to do anything though he so sorely wanted to. Another door in the basement closed and the echo reverberated past his own door which separated them from everything else.

It wouldn't be long before someone would catch on that she'd lied, but he pushed that thought to the back of his mind along with so many others. Before he could will himself to move, she brusquely stepped forward and pulled him into a close embrace, placing her head on his shoulder for support and quietly sobbing against it.

"._..I forgot when I woke up and it hit me all over again._" she murmured. Because they were so close to the wall, Squall placed the closest crutch against it to give her the slight comfort of a one-armed hug. Forgetting his change of clothes must have been a blessing in disguise.

If her tighter grip was any indication, she must have appreciated the effort. Just as fast, she backed away and hastily wiped her eyes.

"_Sorry._ I...didn't mean to squeeze you that hard." She paused to rub her eyes some more, as if the action itself would make him forget that she'd ever cried in the first place.

"It's not like I have any broken ribs, I'll survive." he tried to quip. He could see a hint of a smirk struggling to form but failed to do so in the end. Instead, she changed topics.

"Your mom really did ask me to tell you that she'd like to talk with you whenever you had the chance. I just...wanted to steal you for a moment or two."

"Funny, I thought you were trying to save me." he dryly pointed out.

"...That too." she agreed. "But I suppose that'd make it...something else."

There was something in her pause that suggested that she was holding back for the wrong reasons. There was something just as wrong manifesting itself in his mind, something to do with seeing her actually commit to a smirk – then he remembered his father's words and secretly shuddered. Why would the sight of her smiling or smirking be related to that? Why did he so sorely need to see her do so anyhow?

"Like?" he prompted, trying to keep the flow of this superficial conversation they were having while also attempting to push down all of the other newly-acquired thoughts in his mind.

"Like...something." she reiterated.

"And by 'something', you mean what?"

"You're being...persistent."

"So I've been told." he conceded. "Questions bother me."

"—Kidnapping a damsel in distress." she blurted out. He blinked. "...Yeah, I mangle expressions _a lot._ I just...happened to catch myself this _ti..."_

When she staggered a little in place, he instinctively dropped the other crutch to stop her from falling over. What he didn't anticipate was that she wasn't the one who fell over this slight dizzy spell. With a resounding clatter, he fell on his backside, his head narrowly missing the wall behind him and the crutch propped up against the wall. The spill caused the crutch to fall but Squall luckily managed to catch it before it hit the ground or Rinoa.

A slight groan escaped his lips. While he was fortunate enough to avoid smacking his bad foot on the ground, the fact that a mere overreaction slash miscalculated movement bested him didn't help his mood any. He wasn't supposed to be this clumsy nor should she be the one aiding him but alas, things weren't always how they were _supposed_ to be. They were now eye-level with each other when she crouched down beside him.

"I'm sorry. I'm just..." she started to sputter, "...Yesterday took so much out of me. I have no energy left."

"...It's alright." he tried to tell her as he set aside the crutch that was dividing them, "I should have been more careful."

With the makeshift barrier removed, she was free to sit close beside him. "...I know that I'll be better if I eat something but...I don't think I can right now." Rinoa whispered. "Please...don't tell your parents about my problem. ...I'm not trying to make this worse on purpose."

"I know that you aren't." he replied. "...Just promise me that you'll do what you can in the meantime."

She weakly but surely, she nodded back. "...Thank you."

Without much thought, he slid backwards against the wall for support and took her in his arms. She felt warm to the touch and he could feel the echo of footsteps reverberating on the other side of the wall but he numbed himself to everything but the girl in his arms. Reflecting on everything said and done in the past few hours, he knew better to let paranoia dictate what he should be doing.

All that mattered was that she felt right in his hold and he'd be damned if he was going to let her go just because of what one person thought of him based on the person he no longer was.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Aah...sorry for the wait. I was blocked for the longest time for this one. But it's okay. Now it can double as a birthday present to myself and that's always cool.

_-Emerald-Latias_


	59. Chapter LVIII – Gravity

**Author's Notes – **School sucked so much (emphasis on the so) time from my life and this one's still Squall-centric. That's all you need to know, folks. Well...that and how the song I used is actually related to the chapter's title. Try to guess how to humour me.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter LVIII – Gravity**

-

_Are you waking up slowly?  
Nothing but lonely?  
Are you waking up?  
Holding, holding your breath?  
Are you looking for something?  
I promise you one thing,  
I promise I'll always, always be there.  
_

_**-Our Lady Peace, A Story About A Girl.**_

-

Squall couldn't even begin to count the number of minutes he'd spent here on the floor with Rinoa, and yet, he couldn't bring himself to care - not even when he heard loud footsteps on the other side of his door. She'd found some amount of comfort in his arms and he'd be damned to get up and take that away from her. No, he was more than content to act as her pillow of sorts for as long as she wished to lie here. To hell with the wall's moulding digging into his lower back or the throbbing ache of his foot, he just needed to grow accustomed to it for long enough so the sensation dulled.

The pain didn't get the chance to dull as he expected, however.

After going for the longest time in his arms with her back facing him, she shifted around. More importantly, so did he. She was staring at him with glassy brown eyes as big as saucers from under his watchful gaze, her face a mere inch or two away from his. He prayed to Hyne that she didn't feel him tense up just now.

"...I'm sorry. Did I...hurt your foot?" she meekly whispered.

He merely shook his head in an attempt to avoid bringing attention to the movement. Fortunately, she dropped the line of questioning and went straight for the jugular - metaphorically of course, she wasn't a vampire or a mindless zombie after all.

"...I think I've...stolen you from your mom long enough." she quietly said. "Maybe...you should go now?"

...Alright, maybe it wasn't so much of a question rather than a deduction made in an uncertain tone. Didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, he'd still have to acknowledge the statement either way. Rinoa peeled her body off him but had yet to get up completely. There was a certain air of indecisiveness lingering within her eyes.

He chose to acknowledge her previous statement right at this moment.

"You don't want me to go."

When she looked downwards with a grimace, it was all the proof he needed.

"I...don't want you to but," She looked back up, lips beginning to tremble slightly. Her gaze settled on the cerulean blues of his eyes. ".._.it wouldn't be fair. Not when...this is all so unfair to you to begin with._"

Squall tilted his head ever so slightly. "...I don't understand._"_

Then it all came out.

"...We've only been going out for a week and I've just...I just dumped all of this weight on your shoulders and made everything so much more serious and complicated than it really should be." she told him. "...You deserved to be a normal teenager for once in your life and not be weighed down by something else... Just n-not, Hyne...not this."

When she started to tremble in a less subtle fashion, he leaned forward from his sitting position and took her in his arms without a single word, cradling her ever so closely. Hearing her every breath, sniffle and sob…it was almost too much, especially when she was beating herself up for a flawed assumption. No, she shouldn't be crying over him, he thought.

_-Nor should she ever._

"Please stop blaming yourself for something outside of your control. It'll be fine, I..." He trailed off, knowing that this line of reassurance wasn't quelling her tears in the slightest. "...I don't think I could have ever gone back to being a normal teenager anyway."

Suddenly, Rinoa lifted her head with a snivel. "...You're just saying that to make me feel better."

He shook his head. "No...I'm not. I meant every word. " he reiterated; a near-silent sigh escaped his lips. "I've become an old soul before I met you and I will always be one. I just...don't have your resilience to be anything but."

"...What about last night...before the call?" she offered. "You seemed more like a normal teenager than an 'old soul' then."

"There's a difference between being an old soul and dead," he dryly pointed out, "-and contrary to popular belief, I don't completely fall into the latter category."

If it were any other situation, he would have anticipated a giggle or two from her afterwards but he knew better. Peering downwards, it wasn't hard to miss the large frown on her face. _Damn it_. Another attempt at consoling her tears had backfired yet again and he was running out of options fast.

He sighed. "...Is it safe to assume that the self-depreciating humour didn't do anything for my argument?" he asked in a last-ditch effort to turn this around. She lifted her head ever so slowly.

"...Not really."

"I figured that much." he admitted, turning his head away for a moment. "I won't leave until you actually want me to. My mom can wait."

"No Squall, it's okay. You can go." she replied. "We'll...be here all day if you wait for me and I think it's safe to say that your mom won't want to wait that long."

"If she needs to see me that badly, she'll come downstairs. I'm not moving otherwise."

Rinoa sighed. "If you weren't hurt, I'd drag you up there myself, you know."

"I would have liked to see you attempt that." he commented. When the faintest flickering hint of a smile graced the corners of her lips despite her overall sullen and uneasy expression, he felt a positive twinge in the pit of his stomach.

"...Maybe I'll try if things...if they ever get any better." she mumbled, stifling a yawn.

Deciding not to add anymore, he opted to watch her eyelids grow heavier and to feel the heartbeats he felt against his chest slow as the minutes passed. Slowly but surely, she eventually drifted off into uneasy slumber. It didn't come as a surprise to him, being very well aware of the paltry amount of sleep she had last night and how slumber was easily the most valuable commodity to someone in her state. He remembered that feeling all too well.

...But he didn't want to.

Among other things, what he wanted to do was be able to carry her over into his bed and give her a more comfortable place to nap before she was bound wake up more miserable than ever because it wouldn't be where she thought she'd be and suddenly remember why she was here again.

He tilted his head backwards, making a small thump noise against the wall. He closed his eyes to gather his thoughts.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Twenty minutes had passed when he heard some knocking.

"_Squall...are you in there?_"

He reopened his eyes; it was his mother calling out to him on the other side of the door.

"Yes_._"

"_Is it alright if I come in?_"

"Yeah."

After his monosyllabic reply, the door slowly opened, revealing her looming figure through the sliver of opened space. Rinoa was still asleep in his arms as he tilted his head in his mother's direction, careful not to move too much and risk waking her up. When his mother stepped past the door's threshold, he couldn't help but notice the surprise in her eyes and the light frown tugging at the corners of her lips. He kept his protective hold on his sleeping girlfriend, however.

"How...is she Squall?" she softly whispered.

"As well as you could expect for someone in her state." he answered. Raine sighed.

"Poor girl. I wish there was something more we could do for her."

"...Yeah." he listlessly agreed before slowly changing subjects. "...How are we going to deal with the funeral?"

"It'll depend on what Rinoa wants to do. Your father and I will help her out with the details so you don't have to worry about it."

"...Alright." He looked away for the moment, finding himself readjusting his slipping grip ever so slightly. Still not facing his mother, he continued to speak. "Did Dad tell you about the sleeping arrangements he had in mind for when Elle's over?"

"Yes, he told me."

It was only then when he mustered the courage to re-establish eye contact with his mother.

"I'm not sure if it'll work out." he calmly told her.

"Squall...you know why he doesn't want you two in the same room at night."

"I realize that but I doubt she'll be able to stand being alone. Even if I follow the arrangement to a fault, I won't physically be able to turn her away if she comes into the living room."

"Does she even know about any of this?"

"No. Not yet."

"Squall…I'm not about to undermine your father's plans when this is only based on an assumption."

He half-heartedly shrugged.

Raine took two steps and crouched down to be by his side, resting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Her lips were ready to part to say something when Squall felt some slight movement from underneath his arms. With his attention diverted, he saw Rinoa's eyes slowly crack open. When her pupils seemed to notice the foreign hand on his shoulder, Rinoa felt several degrees warmer against his frame. He discreetly loosened his hold, but she didn't budge an inch. She closed her eyes instead.

The older woman shifted her gaze downward.

"...Rinoa, are you awake?" Raine asked. Apparently, the teenager's attempts at feigning slumber had not been swift enough.

Rinoa reopened her eyes a fraction. "...I am."

Raine gave her a polite smile and removed her hand from Squall's shoulder.

"Laguna and I are going to help you bring some of your belongings from your house." she told her. "Would you like us to bring some extra suitcases and boxes?"

"I have some of my own but..." She abruptly cut herself off. There was a paralyzing, almost disarming quality in the deadened nature of her brown eyes. Squall couldn't ignore the strong sinking sensation building up in his stomach when she shifted her gaze to him. "-_Angelo_...Hyne, I forgot about her."

Squall looked over to his mother, not surprised to see a slightly confused look on her face. "Angelo is Rinoa's dog." he tersely explained, opting not to vocalize the request which was surely implied with the statement.

Raine sighed. "You know we can't take her in until next week because of your sister's allergies."

"…_You don't have to._" Rinoa interrupted in a tiny voice, finally moving away from her position within Squall's arms. "If it makes it easier for everyone…I could just live in my house. That way…I could take care of Angelo, you wouldn't have to move my things and if there's…if there's anything from the insurance company or my uncles, I'd be able to get back to them sooner."

Still leaning against the wall in his seated position, the added bodily warmth she took with her left him uncomfortably cold in her departure's wake. The feeling was comparable to having a blanket ripped off on a cold winter's morning and— Hyne…even that analogy was leaving him uncomfortable. The underlying metaphors he was making were almost disconcerting, especially since it was quickly beginning to transcend into more meanings than he'd originally intended the more he thought about it.

Her suggestion was technically practical in all the respects she'd mentioned and yet…

"Rinoa, I'm not going to let you live at your house alone. You'll go mad."

…Apparently, his mind had utterly failed at restraining that _particular_ gem of a thought. His eyes had also failed at looking away from his mother's bewildered gaze, not even when he was using the corner of the dresser as leverage to pull himself up in junction with the strength of his good leg.

Knowing that there was truly nothing else to lose at this point, he elaborated even further.

"I don't care what kind of problems Dad has with me. If we can't have Angelo over here because of Elle's allergies, I'll stay with Rinoa at her house for as long as necessary."

"Squall…" It was Rinoa chiming in. "It's…okay. I'll be fine. Just because I'm at my house doesn't mean I can't come over for a bit, right?"

He shifted his gaze onto Rinoa. In contrast to his weak form in body and in mind, she looked like the pillar of strength. She had found a perfect compromise within independence and willingness to accept help. All he had ever known was resorting to extremes.

He looked over at his mother only to find no reassurance whatsoever. He had to leave, no, needed to leave and clear his head - and so he did.

-And so he underestimated the severity of his impaired finesse when he attempted sidestepping around Rinoa to pick up his crutches.

Gravity had not been so kind.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

His last misstep was the straw that broke the Chocobo's back - or rather its ankle in this case. Now confined to his bed with his left foot propped up by pillows and his ankle covered with cloth-swathed ice packs by his mother for the past two hours, he was now as useless as it got. To his knowledge, or lack there of, at least one of his parents and Rinoa were gone from the house but that was as far as he knew. He wasn't aware of what the plan was, if she was going to stay at her house or whatever other option they could have thought of.

Stemming from the slightest of miscalculated movements, a sharp pain coursed through the side of his body and he wanted nothing more than to string a never-ending amount of curse words under his breath - but he didn't. He let the pain flow freely through his body without any kind of release.

As masochistic as it sounded, maybe he'd finally learn something that way.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Squall couldn't help but sigh once the pain had ebbed.

Had he been unfairly treating her like a fragile crystal figurine, overlooking some of the strengths that she had indeed possessed in spite of the direness of the situation?

Had he been too zealous in trying to protect her from all of his past mistakes?

He began to loathe himself when the answer to all of his questions came back as a resounding yes.

Squall promptly buried his face in his hands. This was confusing enough as it was so why the blue hell did he have to add even _more_ psychological bullshit on top of this?

_Oh right, I'm Squall Leonhart,_ he sourly thought, _that should have been a given - my mistake._

Squall was about to let out another exasperated sigh when he heard a creaking noise permeate his eardrums. Moving his hands away from his face, he looked over at the door in the far right corner, praying to Hyne that whoever it was wasn't going in just to check up on him and his aggravated injury.

It was bad enough that he'd become enough of a klutz to be forced into staying bedridden like this, but the fact that he looked every bit the invalid with his mismatched pyjama bottoms and long sleeve shirt, pathetically propped up foot and one-and-a-half day's worth of stubble was added insult to, well…injury.

It was Rinoa.

She was holding onto the handle of a small, snow-encrusted burgundy suitcase with wheels. Careful not to move his legs, he sat up and twisted his torso in her direction. When she made eye contact with him after she was completely past the door's threshold, she closed and locked the door, making her way towards him with the suitcase still in tow. Shortly after, she sat herself by him on the bed. Hand still holding onto the extended handle, she gave him a bitter and unconvincing semblance of a smile.

"This…_tiny _suitcase is the only thing I have to show from the trip to my house." she admitted, her corners of her false smile bottoming out into a true frown. "I thought I would be okay as long as I didn't stay in there for too long, you know? Pack my bags, feed and let Angelo go outside for a little while before leaving again. I thought that I'd…be strong enough to do that little bit for now but…I just couldn't. It hurt to see that last moment of innocence staring me back in the face."

He honestly couldn't find a way to respond to that without making it sound like some kind of second-hand cliché. He realized that his inability to say anything was making for quite the awkward silence, but…he felt that words unspoken were better than words that did no good.

"Your parents went to go get your sister early and…" She looked downwards. "-my neighbours…they offered to keep Angelo for the week before we went inside my house."

"You…don't sound too thrilled about that second part."

When Rinoa lifted her head upwards, Squall could see tears streaming from her eyes. "They offered because they saw my parents' accident on the 11 'o clock news, Squall. Everyone's going to know now and_…goddamn it,_ this…everything would have been fine if it wasn't broadcasted. I could have been strong enough to stay at my house for longer...everyone wouldn't treat me like someone in a plastic bubble and…just…_—God!_" she sobbed, letting go of the suitcase's handle. "…I don't need this. …I don't want this. I want to be a normal person again, just like I used to be. But no, it's always one…one _fucking_ thing after another, it never ends and…and by God I wish it had. I'm tired of being the ragdoll everyone has to patch together. I'm…_ just so tired…_"

At this point, Squall didn't know what to say or do for fear of patronizing her in some way; all he could do was look her in the eyes, trying to search for something, anything he could do to assuage her worries and fears. The former dullness in her brown eyes gave way to a beautiful gleam. Her hand was on his and he could feel her heartbeat within her fingertips.

_No,_ he scarcely thought, _I can't get myself entangled in this scenario again… I can't._

"…You have to stop trying to resort your problems this way Rinoa." he softly told her, never breaking eye contact as the space between them was closing fast. "These kinds of distractions only add layers to your problems, they won't take them away. You need to give this time."

"If you believe that then…why didn't you move or push me away?" she replied in an equally-soft tone back at him.

Ignoring the slow, bated breaths tickling his neck, Squall answered her straight. "…You know why I can't move Rinoa."

"Then why aren't you pushing me away if your leg won't allow you to move?"

"Because."

…_I can't._

"…Because why?"

"…Because I trust you will listen to me on this._" _he sternly answered; his eyes never blinked, never broke contact. "You shouldn't need to depend on me physically pushing you away to stop yourself."

"…What if...what if I told you that I only wanted an innocent escape? One that we won't regret after?" she replied, "Would you reject that simple request?"

Before he could even reply, she quietly closed the gap between them. As she kissed him ever so softly, he did not break away, not even when she slowly increased the fervour of the embrace when she looped her arms around him and turned the rest of her body to face him. After a few minutes had passed, he found himself with his hands on the small of her back, beginning to reciprocate her kisses. It was around that time where he began to feel her tears fall against his cheeks.

He broke it off then, but she would have none of it as she leaned forward and slowly closed the gap again. Because his back hadn't been leaning against anything when she created this rather awkward angle, his stomach muscles were the sole reason he wasn't flatly sandwiched between her and the mattress. Knowing this was a very likely and potentially risky outcome if he didn't do anything; Squall removed his hands from her back, hers from his neck, broke it off and opted to slink backwards until his back was flush against the headboard.

With this simple action, his bad foot slid off the pillow propping it up and away from the ice packs controlling the swelling. Rinoa was left on his right with one leg bent under her frame on the bed and the other with her toes touching the floor below. She adjusted herself so she was sitting beside him once more, restablishing eye contact.

Trying his best to stabilize his breathing, he didn't seem to have the willpower to look away.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Ugh, finally done! You guys have no idea of how grateful I am to be able to send it off to you all, although I'm sure it wasn't enough to compensate for the ridiculous amount of time you all had to wait for it. Regardless, I hoped you enjoyed it somewhat. I'll try to be better for the next one though I won't have too much time on my hands for the next two weeks unfortunately.

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbits – **The part at the beginning that said,_ 'metaphorically of course, she wasn't a vampire or a mindless zombie after all,_' was a reference to another author's notes in their chapter in regards to the often bad characterization Rinoa gets in other stories. The final part was partly inspired by an awesome chapter I had beta-d recently.


	60. Chapter LIX — Sympathy Calls

**Author's Notes –**I apologize for making it seem like I last updated eons ago because I didn't start writing until after the end of my Spring finals in early July and with summer classes and their exams in the way…lets just say it was hard to get anything done. But now that those are done too, I should be able to take advantage of the two-ish weeks off. Cross your fingers people! Hehe.

Anyways, I'm changing things up this time around with – you guessed it – Rinoa's POV this time around. Hope you like. :)

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter LIX — Sympathy Calls**

-

_So I walk up on high,  
And I step to the edge,  
To see my world below,  
And I laugh at myself,  
As the tears roll down,  
'Cause it's the world I know.  
It's the world I know._

_**-Collective Soul, The World I Know.**_

-

Rinoa couldn't help but frown when she saw him wince. Even more so when she knew that he was trying his best to keep his pained grimace a secret. After everything she saw him go through today, Rinoa had a hunch that he didn't deal with being injured very well. Asking if he was okay seemed like a bad question. Even still, not asking or not doing anything in general felt like a heartless option to pick, especially when his eyes were still deeply engaged in hers and hers into his.

Without a single word, she reached out to him, placing a hand on his right knee and offering the slightest of half-smiles as reassurance that it was okay. Her efforts were rewarded with nothing more than a momentary glance downward at her hand. The leg muscles near his knee stiffened and it didn't take long for it all to click in her head. He probably thought she was trying to persuade him to do what she failed to last night.

If it were any other situation, she would have frowned at his assumption but she couldn't blame him in the slightest if that's what he thought right now. Even she couldn't say for certain if the thought had passed through her mind once more. She couldn't even properly recollect what had happened in the past hours without finding gaping holes. Only the important fragments of memory remained. The influx of a thousand different sensations, feelings and thoughts stemming from the past few hours were almost too voluminous to bear and keep in check without a proper outlet draining the excess.

"I'm...sorry." she told him in a hushed whisper, not sure of what else to say. For good measure, she removed her hand too. "...I don't know...what...happened...there."

He raised his gaze enough to look her in the eyes. Peering into those blues of his, Rinoa couldn't help but feel an electric sizzle course through her body akin to the kind usually associated to skin touching skin.

"Honestly...I don't know what to say._" _he admitted. "I don't have the heart to lecture you but...overlooking this won't do us any good either."

Rinoa felt a lump forming in her throat. It was getting harder and harder to maintain her gaze. She would have looked down a while ago if she didn't think he was going to continue talking. Rinoa knew that she owed him that much. When his gaze had softened a little and his lips started to part, she knew that her prediction was going to come true.

"This should come as no surprise but...my father doesn't want us in the same room at night. I was going to try and convince him to reconsider but I'm not sure anymore." he told her in a calm tone that seemingly betrayed his uneasy features. "Not when any control I had only seems to be slipping through my fingers now."

"I'm...sorry." Rinoa murmured, once again unsure of what else to say at the moment.

"No, I didn't say that to make you apologize. I just..." He trailed off, looking away. A sigh punctuated the silence. "...I should have been able to stop it as sooner. The fact that I wasn't able to...I...don't know if that means anything or..."

"It doesn't have to." she softly told him. "Yesterday, you told me that I shouldn't question whether it's right or wrong to smile. I think...you shouldn't look too much into this either. This...is going to be hard enough on all of us. We'll probably make a lot of mistakes along the way but...we'll get to where we need to be eventually."

Rinoa could see the surprise slowly blossoming on his features. "...Do you believe that?"

Judging from the tone of his voice, she knew that his question wasn't asked in a condescending or incredulous manner. It was merely a simple curiosity fuelling the inquiry. With that knowledge kept in the forefront of her mind, she replied without any reservation.

"I have to Squall. I don't think I'll make it through this if I don't." she truthfully answered. "When you're as close to the bottom as you can get, you can only go up, right?"

"It depends on who you ask." he replied. "Some people choose to resign on life and never come up from the hole they've dug for themselves."

Slightly curious by the remark, Rinoa inched closer to him.

"...Have you ever known anyone like that?"

"I have. More than I care to admit." he quietly told her. "You won't be one of them if that's what you're asking."

If Rinoa would have had it in her to smile at the moment, she would have. Instead, she slowly ventured closer to him, nestling herself against his body. He didn't object but on the same token, he didn't wrap his arms around her either. If Rinoa hadn't known any better, she could have sworn he wasn't breathing. Wiping away the residual tears against her own cheeks, she dared to look him in the eye as she moved away ever so slightly, exchanging glances at the closest proximity possible.

She couldn't escape the blueness of his eyes and it didn't seem like he was escaping the dark chocolate colouring of hers either. Time seemingly slowed as they stayed there, almost perfectly motionless. Rinoa felt relieved to feel the slight rise and fall of his chest. It felt silly to worry about something as basic as breathing but with everything going on, she did not rule out the possibility of another incident adding more fuel to the fire which was already ruining her life right now.

After a few more repeats of the rise and fall movements reassured her that there wouldn't be another catastrophe on the horizon, Rinoa found the strength to revert back to her original nested position against his upper body. Fatigue made its presence known as her eyelids grew increasingly heavier...

—She flinched at the sound of her cell's ringer emanating from her pocket.

She stood still, contemplating whether or not she should take the plunge and fish out the cell phone from her pocket and answer it. As the ringtone seemingly grew louder, Rinoa heard another voice cutting through the noise.

"...You don't have to answer it if you don't want to."

She looked up at him, letting the phone's ringer continue to play uninterrupted. Then, with visible conflict emanating as clear as day through her movements, she took the phone out of her pocket, to see who was calling from the small square display on its front. Rinoa looked back at him, giving him a small heads up before moving from her spot and out of the room altogether.

Once she was outside of the room, she sat down on the floor directly beside the door and flipped the pearl-white phone open, placing it to her ear.

"Hello...?"

"-_Rinoa?_"

"...Yes, i-it's me." she answered, her voice threatening to crack with every syllable. "Is there...is there a reason you're calling me?"

The voice was unmistakable. The number that had shown on the display had been too. The reason she chose to answer his call was beyond all comprehension however.

"_I saw the news at lunch and...I just wanted to offer my condolences._"

"...Rob, I know you meant well but...you've got...you have an awful lot of nerve to be calling me after what we've been through."

The mere mention of his name on her tongue stung. God, was it only a morbid, _nay_, masochistic curiosity solely fuelling her decision to answer the call? Not like it truly mattered in the grand scheme of things. The outcome hurt like a bed of nails, regardless of how she happened to make the decision.

There was a long sigh on the other end. "..._I know._"

"No, I don_'t-_ think you do." she sharply replied. "You don't just call after a year and a half of nothing -_ regardless_ of the circumstances."

"_Rinoa, you gotta realize that it's kinda hard to bring yourself to willingly talk to someone who you know hates your guts."_

"Then...why did you call?_"_

"_Because I'd be a bigger asshole if I didn't._" he honestly answered. "_Not to mention I figured you'd let the call go to voicemail if you didn't want to listen to me._"

Rinoa almost had to shake her head. "Rob, both of my parents are gone...thinking straight is hard for me right now."

"_Okay...I'll get off the phone since this is making things too complicated. Just try to take care of yourself, alright?_"

"I'll...try."

A second had passed when Rinoa had her thumb poised to push the appropriately-titled 'End' button to end the call when she suddenly decided to bring it back to her ear, leaving it there without saying a word. For some inexplicable reason, Rinoa wanted to hear the telltale disconnecting click on his end before doing so herself. What she got was a whole other story however.

"._..Is there something else Rinoa? I can still hear you breathing._"

"No...there isn't. I was just waiting for you to hang up first."

"_Rin, I realize that it's been awhile but I still know better than to believe you there. Go ahead and say whatever it is. I don't care if it happens to involve telling me off._"

Rinoa couldn't help but let out a cold, hollow chuckle. There was that option again. To click a single button and be rid of all this pain or a dormant opportunity gripped tightly between her fingers, just waiting to be acted upon. After a long, hard second of contemplation, Rinoa couldn't kid herself. She had next to no willpower to resist this chance at the forbidden fruit. Not when the allure of the distraction was so great.

"Do you...know what happened to me after we split back then?"

"_Not…much. All I seem to remember is that you transferred schools after second semester started._"

"...I didn't transfer, I had to be hospitalized...all because of _you_." she blurted, breath cascading through her body in waves. "You made me feel..._so._..worthless.._._so _pathetic_ after finding out that our..._'relationship_' was nothing more than...than just a glorified version of friends with _**benefits**_ to you. I...I had to find a self-destructive way to feel good about myself again. ...Y-you _cost_ me a year I-I'll never get back."

Everything went silent save for a few awkward guttural throat clearing noises, punctuated by an errant cough or two on the other end of the line. Just as she was expecting him to sputter a weak apology as the background noise seemed to finally ebb, he hung up.

She turned her own phone off and set it to the ground. Cradling her legs together with both arms, Rinoa rested her forehead on her knees. Another hollow and morose chuckle pierced through the air, the echoes seemingly trapped within the sliver of space between her legs and body.

The sound never escaped.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

It didn't come as a surprise by any stretch of the imagination to see him come through that door several minutes after the phone call with _him _had ended. In all of their eyes, she was a poor and defenceless Chocobo in need of constant protection and safeguard from all of the mundane and exquisite unpleasant aspects of life had to offer right now.

Normally, she would have thought otherwise but Rinoa couldn't help but to see the validity of their point at the moment.

She looked to her left, noticing a newfound heaviness weighing her down. And by the looks of things, she wasn't the only one.

"...Squall, you're going to hurt yourself trying to sit down to the floor." she told him in spite of being damn-well aware that he was going to do what he was going to do regardless of what she said.

A soft thump put an end to the charade. He looked her in the eye but her focus was elsewhere, happening to notice that he was wearing jeans instead of the pyjama pants in addition to a short-sleeve black tee replacing his sweater. Regardless of the casual observation, Rinoa got up from her seated position against the hallway's wall and took two steps.

Directly facing him, she extended a hand.

He didn't take it, prompting her to bring it closer. He still didn't take it.

"Trying to pull me up will only achieve to make you fall down on top of me." he reasoned aloud.

She thrust her hand even closer, ignoring his explanation.

After losing the consequential semi-serious staring match they had engaged in, she reluctantly retracted her hand and sat down beside him, landing harder than she would have liked. Ignoring the minor flare of pain coursing up her spine, Rinoa rested her head on his shoulder. The material underneath the side of her head felt immensely comforting in spite of the thin and slightly coarse nature of the cotton.

"...Squall?" she softly called out to him. Rinoa could feel him shift a little.

"...Yeah?"

"Have you...ever gotten a sympathy call?"

"I couldn't have. No one knew, remember?"

"No, I...meant as in ever. Not just for that."

The silence that subsequently followed wasn't an awkward one. After a few seconds of what must have been done in reflection, he answered her.

"No, not to my knowledge." he truthfully replied. "I know that my mother has after hearing a story she told me a few months ago."

"...Oh, she did?"

"Yeah...she told me that when my grandfather had recently passed away, she received a fair amount of calls from relatives and acquaintances offering condolences or help. She was polite to all of them on the phone but she couldn't help but wonder why they hadn't bothered to reach out to her until after the fact and not throughout the whole ordeal."

Rinoa felt pang in the pit of her stomach and the need to bring herself to indefinitely close all gaps between their side-by-side bodies. "...That's so horrible."

"...It honestly was. That alone would be enough for anyone to deal with but she also had to juggle his illness with an infant too."

"...I remember what you said about your grandpa being sick while you were little."

"It...wasn't as simple as that though. I wasn't born when she learned that my grandfather was dying. She didn't even know she was pregnant then." he clarified. After slightly pausing, his tone warmed ever so slightly. "I realize that this story sounds bleaker than hell but...there was an upside."

"I'd...like to hear it if you don't mind." she asked. "...I think I could use an upside right now."

After a large, hesitant pause, he began to talk.

"...It was around late January when my grandfather told my mother that he was diagnosed with an incurable but slow-progressing form of leukemia. Doctors had told him that he had anywhere from months to years to live because of the nature of the cancer but the available treatments could only treat the symptoms, not the cancer itself."

Rinoa shifted a little to look up at him. In spite of the weight of her gaze, he soldiered on.

"My mom...tried to put a brave face on for him even though the…inevitability of it all hit hard." he began, his gaze faltering slightly. "…It didn't matter though. Even with the facade, she couldn't hide the physical signs brought on by the stress for very long. I was told that after a few weeks of this, he had enough of the excuses and made her go to the doctors."

"…And then she found out?"

He nodded. "She did when she came back for a follow-up appointment. She told my grandfather first out of anyone because they'd always been close, even before this." He looked down. "Nothing dramatic happened after she told him that she was pregnant. His condition didn't improve, he was still the same person as he was before, but…he was happy for her."

"You don't sound too happy about it." she commented.

He looked up. "It doesn't matter whether I am or not." he told her. "It's the upside I was referring to. My mother said that I…made my grandfather happy by giving him something else to focus his energies on instead of the cancer, letting him see her get a second chance and seeing Elle get excited whenever he purposely brought it up when she'd come over to visit."

Not willing to press the subject of why he didn't sound happy, Rinoa merely said her thanks to him. He reciprocated the gesture with an, _'it's not a problem' _in kind. Following a few moments of nestled-together silence, her cell phone started to ring from the other side of the doorframe. This time, she her phone go unanswered, throughly not compelled to give into the rings' urgency. Unsurprisingly enough, Squall took notice of her inaction.

"…I take it that you got an unwanted sympathy call earlier." he deducted.

"I did." she answered. "It was…from the person I least expected one from. I just…couldn't let the opportunity pass me by so I told him how he messed up my life a year-and-a-half ago even though it clearly wasn't the time to bring it up." A bitter chuckle escaped the confines of her throat. "I guess it goes to show just how messed up I am. Telling my ex how he messed up when he only called to _'give his condolences'_ for my parents."

"Rinoa, I'm in no position to judge." he told her. "It's alright."

After softly whispering some more thanks, she moved away from him and reached out to grab her cell phone after the rings had finally died out. The square display showed that there was a voicemail waiting for her from Ivy so she flipped the phone open and shut it off completely, pocketing the phone soon after. Out of sight and out of mind, she mused. She would listen to her recorded sympathies when she was stronger.

Just as she was returning to former spot beside him, their eyes met. Rinoa stopped moving.

"I'm…taking your suggestion. I'm not going to answer my phone until I'm ready to handle it."

"…That's good."

After she had returned to her original place beside him, she didn't lean her head on him or move close enough for the side of their bodies to be making any form of contact like they had before, opting to bide her time by looking at the adjacent wall, resting her hands in her lap. Concentrating on the wall wasn't the best of ways to keep her mind blank, but it was all she could honestly think of to keep herself from exploding into an uncontrollable fit of tears again.

"…I'm sorry for earlier."

_Hm?_

She turned to her left.

"For…what?" she asked.

"The story I told you." he began to explain. "I should have just said that the positive part was that I made him happy and cleanly ended it there. I…don't know what possessed me to go into so much detail when it wasn't necessary."

"No, it's alright." she reassured him. "…It was nice to know more about you. You don't…do that very often so I appreciated that."

The shy and slightly uneasy look on his face told her more than any amount of words could have ever achieved. But her focus on that wasn't allowed to last long; the next wave of tears inevitably started to make their way out of the confines of her eyes as her thoughts overwhelmed her senses again, wreaking havoc on the faltering mental dam she tried to build up. She absolutely despised the volatility and unpredictability that came with the timing of her bouts of crying, but she didn't have the energy to fight what was bound to come naturally with the grieving process.

But...he was still was there, offering a comforting hand to draw her in closer to him, letting her know that he hadn't gone away. While her body subconsciously curled up against him, her mind consciously wanted nothing more than to apologize for the upsurd amount of repetition concerning her episodes coming out of next to nowhere. Her crying didn't allow for that luxury though. Aside from the sobbing, all she could achieve right now was to dampen his shirt considerably.

She prayed that the day where she could reserve her bouts of tears to the confines of an empty room would come soon. It hurt to see him dragged through so much, over and over again.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Man…I'm so sorry for the ridiculous wait. School in the summer is a bitch to put it bluntly. But, at least I actually kept up with the 'updating on Squall's birthday' tradition though I think this is the first time I've actually made it without cheating somehow. Whatever. Hope you enjoyed the semi-realism I tried to nail down here.

'Til the next one!

_-Emerald-Latias_


	61. Chapter LX – 178 Days

**Author's Notes – **Well, I sure as hell hope this is a more tolerable wait than the one for the last one. And would you look at that, I've got sixty chapters under my belt! Well, technically I did on Squall's birthday, but you all know how I don't count the prologue, _right?_

Right.

Excellent.

And we're back to the swing of things with a Squall POV chapter. This chapter is also going to commemorate surpassing 500 reviews as well. I'm semi-cheating because more reviews came from older chapters since I posted Chapter LIX and not for Chapter LIX itself, but I'll take what I can get because _apparently_ it's not important to review new chapters I post.

And if that last bit sounds like a guilt trip to you, it should because it is. Hint. Hint.

Cheers anyway. :)

_(Psst...much thanks goes out to those who actually go out and take the time to spare me a few words when I update. It's truly appreciated as always. You guys rock.)_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter LX – 178 Days**

-

_And maybe someday, we'll figure all this out,  
Try to put an end to all our doubt,  
Try to find a way to make things better now that-  
Maybe someday we'll live our lives out loud,  
We'll be better off somehow, someday._

_**-Rob Thomas, Someday.**_

-

The first day had officially ended. He had survived his parents heckling him for not resting his foot properly when they came back with his sister, survived the lethal amount of awkward tension at the dinner table, succeeded, though he used the term rather loosely, in helping Rinoa cope and in not resorting to painkillers of any kind after the abuse he put his foot through.

Quite frankly, although he so sorely needed some rest after all he'd been through today, Squall knew in his heart that it would not be given to him. There was simply too much on his mind and he couldn't afford to fall asleep if Rinoa needed him in some way. Although she had been able to control her tears around his family, what control she did possess was very limited and the instant she was away from everyone but him, she cried and he could not blame her in any way. The worst was far from over.

Currently lounging on the living room sofa, he turned to face the dim moonlight shining from the kitchen window from across the hall. It had to have been past midnight, but he didn't care, he needed to stay up or at least check up on her without getting caught.

Peering at his lame foot only seemed to reinforce the notion that he truthfully only had one logical reason for staying up, however. There was no way in hell he was going to be able to silently get downstairs without causing some kind of profanity-laced racket or noisy tumble.

Regardless of how many options he actually had at his disposal, Squall closed his eyes and firmly rubbed his eyelids with his palms. He realized that this was merely cultivating the growing headache within his temples, but could have cared less at the moment. It was just another insignificant problem to add to the much-larger tangle of problems he already had.

When he heard footsteps moments after he had stopped rubbing his eyes, it felt like another harmless drop in the ocean – especially since they were coming from upstairs and he wasn't doing anything vaguely incriminating unless staying up late was worthy of an offence.

Refusing to pretend like he was asleep like some small child who was trying to avoid the potential trouble, Squall merely watched the living room's opening to see if whoever was pacing around was going to come downstairs. Thirty seconds later and the culprit revealed herself without any intentions to hide the purpose of her descent. Ellone's unmistakable form serenely walked into the living room and towards the couch. Squall shifted into a more presentable position by sitting upright.

His sister calmly took a seat on his right, her eyes shining in the weak light of the moon until he leaned over the couch's arm to pull the chain of a lamp on the nearby end table. A soft glow filled the room to its furthest corners, not bright enough to cross the room's threshold.

The instant he turned back to face her, Squall was met with a soul-crushing hug from his sister. Although her actions had caught him off guard, once they had properly registered in his head, he was glad that all he felt was the soft flannel of her modest sage green pyjamas alone without being coupled with the sensation of tears falling down his back. Before his head started swimming from the lack of air entering his lungs, Ellone let go of him and sat down.

"…_You could have warned me before you did that._" he coughed.

"I'm sorry Squall. I've wanted to do that after taking to you on the phone." she explained. "It was so hard not being able to talk to you at home today, especially when you were in the chair beside me at dinner."

"Yeah, dinner tonight was…kind of brutal." he added before switching topics altogether. "I've been meaning to ask but, did Mom and Dad say anything about her…about Rinoa?"

"They told me in a little less detail than what you said over the phone." she answered. "They're really worried about you too Squall."

"That…doesn't surprise me. Dad thinks that I'm doing this to make up for my past faults and Mom witnessed a moment where I was acting nowhere near rational with Rinoa around." he admitted with a sigh. "…I assume that they also told you about my ankle?"

Ellone weakly nodded. "Mom said you hurt it at a badminton tournament and Dad added that you made it worse by trying to help Rinoa. Was it the same ankle you broke skiing a couple years ago?"

"Yeah. It's the same one. When I was with Rinoa at the hospital, I had it looked at when she was saying goodbye to her mom. The nurse said it'd be likely that I'll need minor surgery for it."

Ellone shook her head in disbelief, pinching her nose with her right thumb and forefinger, eyes closed. A moment later, she moved her fingers away from her face and reopened her eyes once more, a slight grimace emerging on her features.

"I can't think of anything to say that would properly describe how I feel right now. This seems so…unrealistic to be true. It's almost as if what you've told me was from a collection of sad passages put together from different stories."

"More like a poorly-written soap opera if you ask me." he bluntly quipped. "…But it doesn't matter because it won't be this way forever. I can't let it stay like this."

"It sounds like you have a plan." she noted. "That's good."

"No. I don't. I just…" His sentence was left hanging for a moment. "…I just know that I have to stop her from repeating the mistakes I made when I was trying to handle my own situation. I won't be able to live with myself if I don't."

His sister's frown lessened. "You really care for her, don't you?"

Normally, Squall would have found some way out of this line of conversation or at the very least played everything down with vague answers. Tonight, he was still as reluctant as ever to verbalize his inner thoughts but, he knew that he couldn't let the silence overtake them. Not after it had been so long since they've truly talked.

"She's been through enough already, even before this. Having this happen...it's beyond unfair."

"...Squall?" she said in a near-whisper, continuing only when she knew that she had his attention, "I know that you probably didn't mean to but, you...didn't answer my question."

He stifled a sigh. "...I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't, Elle."

She nodded. "That's what I thought but...as sad as it is to say, I never truly know with you Squall. Not when I haven't heard these things from you and not someone else."

Squall tilted his head ever so slightly. "Did...someone-"

"—Mom and Dad told me everything that's gone on with you since I left on the way back home." she interjected. "...Iris, your daughter, Rinoa, you two getting together, her parents' accident...just about everything."

After hearing the words, Squall's body may have suffered from a psychologically-induced paralysis, but it did not inhibit the livid nature of his thoughts and soon-to-be words.

"..._They had __**no**__ right to sell me out like that_." he seethed, nearly failing to avoid shooting the messenger. "-_None whatsoever._"

"I know. I had thought the same when they told me but...they're just worried that this might be what pushes _you_ over the edge. They wanted me to know what you had gone through in case if things got worse while I was still here."

"It doesn't matter. I should be able to tell you those things on my own terms. I don't even want to imagine what would have happened if you learned everything second-hand from them."

"I know, but they must have thought that me knowing about what you were going through outweighed the shock."

Squall shook his head. "I...still can't agree with what they did. Their reasoning only works if you didn't think less of me after learning about this to want to look out for me at home. I wouldn't feel very sympathetic towards myself in your position."

"Squall..." she began to chide, "-you know that I would still love you no matter what you did and I'm sure that you would still love me just the same if something like that happened to me. You need to stop being so hard on yourself."

"Elle, you know I would but," he softly began to admit, "-I'd have to kill the bastard responsible for getting you pregnant first. It's not hard to see why I hate me considering the irony."

Ellone sighed. "I was going to wait until things had calmed a bit to tell you but...I think it'll be good for you to hear this. I finally managed to learn a little about my biological parents."

Squall furrowed his brows a little. "...I thought they had opted for a closed adoption."

"Yes, but that was only because Winhill's laws didn't allow for open adoption policies at the time." she clarified. "Recently, they had new laws passed to allow for open adoption to become another option for the people there."

Knowing that the issue with her biological parents secretly meant a great deal to her after she'd found out years ago, Squall merely nodded, allowing her to continue on with her story though he couldn't figure out a plausible link for what he said to why she was bringing this up for the life of him.

"Because of the change in the law, my biological mother contacted the agency, asking if there was a way to contact me. The agency said the new law didn't make a difference, but...the short story is that the change got her calling the agency and they contacted me instead of Mom and Dad because I'm not a minor."

"...I assume that you talked to her?"

"Actually...I met her in person in Timber." she admitted. "The truth is that staying at a friend's house there was a cover. I was at a hotel the entire time I was there. We picked the hotel's lobby as a meeting place. The experience was almost surreal, Squall. The moment I saw her walk into the hotel, I knew it was her. The same thing happened to her too. She knew I was her daughter the instant she saw me sitting at one of the benches."

"So...you take after her?" he asked, indulging in his rare curiosity-fuelled whims.

She smiled. "I saw a passing resemblance but nothing too obvious. She told me that I looked a little like the both of them. I won't bury you with all the details but, it turns out that the situation concerning my adoption was different from the stories you normally hear. As it turns out, they had planned for me. My birth parents had set aside a fair amount of money and had been married for quite sometime by the time my mother learned she was expecting."

"But...something went wrong." he inferred.

"Yes. My real father was shot in an attempted mugging while he and my mother were on a small vacation in Deling City. He lived but because the gunman's shot shattered his hip and he needed to stay in the hospital for quite sometime and required a lot of physical therapy afterwards. Since my father's work didn't have medical coverage, all the money they had saved up went towards his hospital bills and therapy costs.

"But because he took so long to recover, he had lost his job. My mother had been let go from her own job at the local pub ever since her boss found out she was with child. They had no family they could rely on so without any steady income at the time; they had no choice but to give me up."

"...That must have been beyond painful to have everything taken away...piece by piece like that." he quietly commented, trying his best to smooth over the potential cracks threatening to surface in his voice with a dulled down tone.

"It would have been, if not for Mom and Dad. My birth parents felt a little better knowing that they were helping someone else get a second chance." his sister explained. "They did get their second chance a couple of years later though so it isn't a completely sad story. They had a boy when things were stable again for them again."

"So in other words, you have a real little brother now." he pointed out, letting a slight smirk break through.

Ellone shook her head. "No Squall. He's not my real little brother, not when I haven't been there all his life. He's just a stranger to me. You're the only little brother I've ever known. Being related by blood doesn't instantly make up for all that lost time." she told him, sighing a little. "I'm sure you've noticed that I'm having trouble with what to call them."

"Yeah...I did. You kept on switching between biological, birth and real as adjectives. The only time you stayed consistent was when you were talking about our parents."

She finally saw his smirk and raised him a smile. "You don't know how much it means to me to hear you say our parents instead of Raine and Laguna or your biological parents."

"...I could never think of you as anything but my sister or Mom and Dad's daughter. The technicalities mean as little to me as they do for you."

With little forewarning, she leaned forward and gave him another close hug. "...Thank you little brother." she whispered.

After a fair amount of hesitation on his part, he slowly coiled his arms around her in return, reluctantly finding a place on her shoulder to rest his head. Quite some time had passed before she let him go. Even still, Ellone looked him straight in the eye as soon as they were sitting up straight on the couch again.

He couldn't miss the prominent smile on her face even if he tried. It didn't matter if he said nothing in response or failed to smile back at her at the moment; everything they needed to know was perfectly contained and held within the momentary silence.

"Maybe...it's about time I stopped calling you little." she wistfully concluded. Reluctantly, he nodded in agreement.

"It's...been nearly six months. I had to grow up sometime." he admitted. "Part of that...I owe to Rinoa."

"I think Mom and Dad might have noticed." she commented. When he gave her a slight look, she elaborated. "Not...everything Mom and Dad said to me on the way back was negative. They also told me that you haven't been as high-strung as you used to be since Rinoa came into the picture."

Squall could have corrected the slight inaccuracies with the story their parents passed on to her in an effort to hand her some of the many pieces of his life that she had missed during those 178 days since it had changed forever, but he didn't. There was no need.

In themselves, the words she had spoken held truths.

When she had asked for his help in reinventing her image in early January, he was aware of the fact that the ball would always be in his court. This was merely because he knew that if he failed Lit again, Garden would merely make him take a remedial Language and Literature class in the spring semester to substitute for that last credit he needed to earn in order to graduate. He would have preferred to pass normal Lit but, in the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter.

He could have refused her offer.

He could have also ended it when things had gotten complicated with her situation.

But he had done neither.

Even when she had started prying into his life, he still had that power to sever all ties with her but he still chose not to, regardless of all the information he'd unintentionally gained about hers. Whether he admitted it to himself or not, he let her into his life by choice and not by coercion. But what he couldn't deny was the fact that her friendship had helped alleviate the pain of his burdens.

And by that admission alone, he wasn't surprised that his family had noticed a difference over time.

When a soft but distinct set of creaking noises brought his attention back to the real world again, he hazarded a glance to the living room's opening. He didn't see anything, but he had a hunch that someone was waiting where the bases of both staircases ended and began.

He would have quietly looked back at Ellone to non-verbally confirm his suspicions if not for the fact that she was already in the early stage of getting off the couch, possibly to walk to the entrance and confirm it herself.

Ellone had barely made it off the couch before they had both heard a muffled sneeze. Somehow he knew it wasn't either of their parents hiding behind the wall.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments – **Sorry guys, I had to cut it there or else this chapter would have been far too long and would have taken far too long to update. I know it's a filler-ish chapter and to be honest, I'm not exactly feeling it either, but right now, I don't think I can get away with jumping ahead a lot.

On another note, woohoo for the Pacific time zone! Now it'll say I updated on 09/09/09 even though it's the tenth where I live right now. Cool. Happy tenth anniversary Final Fantasy 8. :)

_-Emerald-Latias_

**Random Tidbits – **If I'm not mistaken, Elle's parents in the game were shot, so when she says her father was shot in her story, that's a reference to that. And yes, in case if you're wondering, Squall's response to Elle where he says, _"More like a poorly-written soap opera if you ask me," _is a jab at myself because, quite frankly, if I had any semblance of control, this thing would have been a hell of a lot more concise and done over a long time ago. Haha.


	62. Chapter LXI – The Departing

**Author's Notes – **Yay for guilt trips working! No word of a lie, the day I had posted Chapter LX back in September and saw 4 reviews when I came back home from co-op (yep, I'm doing that again and it's getting in the way unfortunately) I was so happy. Haven't felt like that in awhile, actually.

Anyway, I'm just gonna shut my trap and let the show go on. God only knows I'm running behind enough as it is.

_(Still Squall POV.)_

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**Chapter LXI – The Departing**

-

_I know you feel so far away,  
So far away from better days,  
As you look for a way out,  
I'll hold on to you,  
And when it gets too hard to take,  
I'll be the light that leads the way.  
_

_**-Default, Hold On To You.**_

-

After the sneeze had caught their attention, Ellone slowly sat herself back down onto the cushions beside him, glancing in his direction. He silently motioned for her to stay and wait with his hands. Clasping her own hands together, she nodded back in response, now focusing her gaze onto the entranceway once more just as he did. He reached downwards towards the gap between the arm of the couch and the nightstand to grab the set of crutches he had left there hours ago.

The motions were never fully carried out when he happened to hazard a glance upwards, however. After the shadows crossed the threshold and she'd come through the entranceway, there was no longer a point in getting up—

Straightening out his posture, he was unable to resort to anything other than a lackadaisical blink, a shot of emotion colouring his otherwise expressionless face. There was no she, only the realization that the conclusion he'd jumped to was mistaken once he made more of an effort to focus on the scene unfolding in front of him.

But there was no mistaking it now. The son, daughter and _father_ were now in the same room. The latter of the three chose to be the one to break the unnatural silence.

"I'm surprised that you two are still up. Well, makes things easier, actually. ...Squall?" He wasted no time to turn his sights onto his son and continue, tuning out the cankerous '..._what?_' he'd gotten. "Me and your mother have been talking it over and we've decided on a change of plans for tomorrow morning."

"...Didn't know there was a plan for the morning." the teenager replied. "I thought there was only the visitation for Rinoa's parents at night."

"There's that too, but your mother thinks that it would be best to get your school stuff worked out and to let Cid know about Rinoa's situation so it's all out of the way now. I was thinking of going right before lunch so you won't be stuck at school all morning."

It had all sounded logical enough to take care of everything in one fell swoop and Squall would have whole-heartedly nodded in agreement if not for something that had caught his attention. Even Ellone seemed to have noticed when he caught her expression out of the corner of his right eye.

"After I see Cid to clear this all up...are you planning to have me stay at school?" he asked, narrowing his eyes slightly.

"It'll be better this way Squall." Laguna told him, offering no further explanations as he began to retreat back upstairs. "Don't go to bed too late. We're going to leave at 10:30 tomorrow morning."

And with that, he vanished from sight without as much as another word. Squall didn't have it in him to argue back. Not when he'd need to speak louder to compensate for the growing gap his lame foot wouldn't allow him to close fast enough and certainly not when his complaints would fall on deaf ears to begin with. Instead, he turned to his sister and she offered him a reassuring and sympathetic look.

"You weren't expecting it to be Dad, were you?" she asked.

While he said nothing or gave no real indication of a response, he suspected that what she had said was merely a statement dressed up with an inquiry's inflection.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Waking up the following day couldn't have been described as anything short of difficult. While he had managed to fall asleep shortly after Elle had left and gained several hours of non-interrupted restorative slumber, nothing short of a miracle in his opinion, he had awoken only to wish that he'd stayed up longer than he had instead of listening to his father's recommendation. The key assumptions he'd made last night turned out to be grounded in some truth after all.

The petite stowaway he found sleeping on her side between him and the couch upon waking up was the dead giveaway. The arm she had draped across his chest underneath the blankets made it seemingly harder to ignore; her hand was cold to enough to wonder how she was sleeping soundly without shivering or if she only felt comparatively cold to the touch because of his own body temperature.

Squall looked around, only to find no one else in his immediate surroundings. No din to indicate that there was anyone in the kitchen or even any echoing footsteps at any level of volume to make any education assumptions that someone else was even awake at whatever hour of the morning this was. He unearthed his arm from underneath the covers to find out what time it was only to see that his left wrist was unadorned save for the ink from the permanent reminder he'd gotten months ago.

The teenager couldn't help but find himself analyzing the sparse detail of the tattoo even though he didn't need to look at it to know what it looked like. It was a simple serif font depicting an equally-simple message-

—_Don't forget what happened on the twenty-second of August._

Not like he could ever forget, he mused, knowing that he'd gotten it primarily to keep him humble should life decide to get better in the future in addition to doubling as a memorial.

Soon after, a tangent of thought crossed his mind. Would Rinoa do something similar to mark the fourteenth of February after what had happened to her two years in a row later down the line? _No_, he concluded after a bit of thought was spent on the matter, _probably not._

Shifting his sights from the empty kitchen to her, Squall was more than surprised to see that her eyes were open. She looked tired, but he found some solace in noticing that her eyes weren't red and puffy. It was a start.

"._..Sorry for sneaking in here after you were asleep. It was a little cold downstairs._" she whispered. "_I...hope I didn't get you in trouble._"

"_You didn't. No one's up._" he answered, matching her soft tone almost perfectly even though he was fairly certain that he was only entertaining an excuse by going with the flow. "_Not that I'd care if I was._"

She managed a weak smile when he rested his left arm high on his abdomen, nearly touching the one she still had draped across his chest. "_I listened to some of the voicemail messages on my phone late last night. Someone must have gotten a hold with one of my uncles because he left me a message saying that the both him and both of my aunts are flying in this morning to help with everything._"

"_That's good._"

Rinoa half-heartedly nodded. "_I was going to tell you last night but when I started to come up the stairs, I thought I heard your dad talking to you so I went back into your room and didn't come up until I thought it was safe. I was afraid that I'd complicate things if someone other than you heard me sneeze._"

_So I wasn't completely off the mark_, he thought during her slight pause.

"_...Are you going to school today?_"

He nodded. "_I need to make some charges to my schedule. ...It might take awhile since I don't have an appointment for this._"

"_So you might not be back until school's out, depending on Cid's schedule?_"

_Alright...I did not phrase that well at all_, he thought in hindsight,_ whatever, can't take it back, just need to deal with it and take control of the situation._

"_No. My father is only dropping me off so it's guaranteed that I won't be back any sooner. Sorry."_

She tried her best to keep the frown off of her features but the frown won in the end. "_No, it's fine. It's obviously something out of your control. The day will probably go by really fast anyway with the amount of stuff I have to do with my family and your parents. I just..._"

When she paused again and moved her draped arm lower to overlap his own hand, he tilted his head curiously. She reluctantly picked up where she left off.

"._..It might be awhile before I see you again._"

Squall sat himself up. His foot didn't appreciate the shift upwards but he kept his focus on her and not on the twinge of pain. She moved the one hand away from him and he did the same, letting it rest at his side.

"...That awhile sounds longer than just being away to take care of things for the funeral." he pointedly said, not bothering to whisper any more.

"Balamb's time zone is a few hours ahead of Galbadia so I returned my uncle's call." she began to explain, not whispering either. "He told me that he and my aunt are my legal guardians in my parents' will so..."

"...he's taking you back with him and your aunt once all the loose ends are tied up." he inferred, eventually eliciting a nod from her. "Did he even give you a choice to stay?"

"No, but I'll be okay." she said. "They can't make me stay with them once I'm eighteen. ...I'll try to come back then."

He wanted to tell her that nothing could stop her family from making it difficult to leave even if they couldn't legally stop her, about all of the logistical nightmares that could potentially emerge and how incredibly difficult it would be to try and catch up on roughly a month's worth of work at Garden among other things - but he didn't. He didn't have it in him to crush her fragile hopes under the weight of his cynicism.

Instead of prodding at the cracks of her slipshod plan of action, he asked her, "How long do you think you have before they take you with them?"

"That's...what I don't know." she admitted. "...Right now might be all that we have left."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

They had only been spared roughly ten minutes for themselves before the sound of footsteps reminded them that time would not grant them any form of reprieve, waiting for no one and making no exceptions. Even in spite of this reminder, the sounds had not grown loud or clear enough for anyone to have gone past the base of the stairs leading into the basement. Because of this, Squall made no pre-emptive decision to budge from his spot on his desk chair, nor did Rinoa move from his bed.

While he may not have moved his body, his decision certainly did not hinder him from shifting his sights onto to her. A part of him couldn't help but survey her as she sat there rather listlessly, seemingly tuning him and the rest of the world out with her back against the headboard and hands loosely clasped together on her lap.

With so much in store for her once they'd leave the ambient sanctity of this room, he didn't need to ask why she was so still at the moment. He knew of the weight a single motion forward carried when an unwanted waiting game was being played. Stillness created the illusion that time was going slower than normal, that you were capable of slowing time. Well, it normally did, but drawing from personal experience, the said tactic never seemed to work in situations such as this. Even still, Squall knew that knowing better from the past never stopped someone from trying again and again. He had been guilty of that much in the past.

Letting that particular thought linger in his mind, he finally made the decision to get out of his seat but only to sit by her, simultaneously trying to bury his reservations borne from the current situation.

Squall wanted nothing more than to mentally slap himself right now, realizing that it was rather sad that while he'd brought her down here to bolster and prolong what little time and privacy they had left together, he couldn't even sit on the goddamn bed without a thicket of thoughts preventing him from making good use of the time. Sure, they had exchanged a few words here and there and he had not heard her cry during the time they'd spent down here but…idle chatter and dry eyes were not an excuse for his inaction.

—Not when he hadn't truly _looked_ at her until now.

_Damn it all._

He knew the risk of what thoughts someone could have and the potential trouble he'd get from a jumped-to conclusion if one of them twisted that locked door's knob to no avail, even going as far as acting nonchalant about it when she'd brought it up while they were still upstairs after his initial suggestion to come down here. Why suddenly start to care about every little thing now?

_Because you know that she'll be gone for far longer than she thinks and it's hitting you harder than you ever thought it would, _his mind taunted_, and it scares the hell out of you, just like—_

Twisting his body rightward, he purposely made a point of catching her eye as he looked at her this time, trying shut out his thoughts and mend the fences he'd left in weathered disrepair, only to see break the spell of her stillness with a frown as she reciprocated his gaze.

"…I guess our time is up." she mouthed to him, not in form of a question, but as a defeat-tinged statement.

"No." he softly but firmly replied, trying to feign strength for her. "It's not up until someone knocks on the door."

Squall untwisted his body and moved himself backwards until his back was against the headboard, instead of facing sideways like before. With this simple motion, the knots in his stomach seemingly knotted themselves further beyond any plausible means of untangling. He didn't let them bog him down though, knowing that this was where he _needed_ to be despite all of the alarms going off in his head.

Divorcing himself from his nagging thoughts, he forced himself to focus on the now he and she were living in than the '_could be_'s and '_what if'_s. He focused on the soft tendrils of her hair caressing his neck as she rested her head against his shoulder, the cold touch of her fingers tracing invisible swirls on the back of his left hand and the sound of her slow breaths escaping her body. He did not resist or tense when her fingers stopped tracing patterns and she curled up beside him, closing what little distance had been there and then some as her one arm draped across his stomach like it had been upstairs. With her curled up in this particular fashion, she could look up at him far more easily if she chose to open her eyes more than a crack.

—But she had closed them completely instead of opening them further, her body subtly but unmistakably began to tremble against his frame. The long-delayed muffled sobs and sniffles that followed came as no surprise to him but when she found the strength to quiet them as quickly as they started, that had totally caught him off-guard.

".._.No. I'm not going to make this moment any sadder._" she asserted to his shirt, hiccoughing slightly.

"If this were any other situation, I'd tell you that my face is up here." Squall said in a somewhat-awkward attempt to lighten things up a little. He felt a small chuckle trap itself between the space between her lips and his torso however.

Slowly but surely, she unburied her face and opened her eyes, revealing her strength and bittersweet expression, all evidence of the chuckle's existence sobered. As he locked eyes with her, the chuckle didn't matter anymore; it had already been erased from memory. What was happening now was what he knew would stay in the recesses of his mind long after the fact.

As the silence between them grew, Squall noticed that the footsteps he heard in the distant background had also become quieter with further few in between. The teenager would have thought something of that coincidence if not for the large likelihood that he probably didn't notice a gradual change because of his shifted focus towards the girl in his grasp and for the fact that it wasn't too unreasonable for the family members who had been up to go back to bed – it was only seven am and none of them had commitments to be anywhere anytime soon after all. The watch he reunited himself with and what his father had said last night had told him that much—

"_Squall...?_"

—But it didn't matter about his hypothesized explanations for the silence though, her voice had broken it. The perfect silence wouldn't reoccur for quite some time anyway; she had continued.

"_...I know I shouldn't be asking this favour of you but..._" Although she muted herself temporarily, it didn't take a rocket scientist to know where this was headed. Even so, he still waited for her to come out and say the words she to ask him.

He had almost waited a full minute, hearing nothing more than her uneven breaths before she'd vocalized the request however.

"_Could we...have one last kiss?_"

_Last. _

_Does she realize it too? _

With no real background noise to distract him from the sight directly in front of him, he softly kissed her on the lips nice and slow, unafraid of her past actions to deny her of her wish. Parting later on when they both needed to regain their breath, she did not try to extend her request afterwards, content to curl up against him like she had moments prior.

He, on the other hand, was not.

This was the very thing he had feared from the moment he had locked the door when they entered the room.

He was the one he had been worried about, not her.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

**End of Chapter Comments - **Sorry if there are any really big typos at the moment. I just wanted to get this damn thing up before I went to bed. I couldn't wait any longer so I hope you guys understand.

_Night!_

_-Emerald-Latias_


	63. Chapter LXII – Linger

**Author's Notes – **Just a quick note here before the chapter, as of now, I'm not going to any more 'End of Chapter Comments.' I'll just include anything I want to say in here.

Sorry for the long wait for a relatively-short chapter. My attention span is basically shot and for some reason I've been having a hard time buckling down as of late. Anyway, this is the best I can do at the moment without an illogical break to end the chapter with. I'm off this week so maybe something'll turn up. I make no guarantees, however. I'll fix whatever typos later. I'm just too busy right now.

* * *

**Chapter LXII – Linger**

-

_I'm blind and shaking,  
Bound and breaking,  
I hope I make it through all these changes.  
_

_**-3 Doors Down, Changes.**_

_-_

Nestling up beside him obediently was not like her. Even in her darkest hours not even a few days ago, she always seemed to initially resist any piece of advice or council he'd give before listening, almost as if she had to at least test it out first before adopting it.

This was just giving up.

Truthfully, he was expecting an attempt at prolonging the kiss in some way at the very least, especially taking in consideration that the footsteps had still not grown loud enough to become audible through the vents again.

Sure, it was a hell of a lot easier this way, not having to fight her advances and his usually-dormant hormones at the same time, but, it just felt so unusual to skip all those steps. This felt too clean and sterile when needless complexity was what he was used to with her. Hell, it's what brought them together with that ridiculously-contrived plan to begin with.

Squall stifled a sigh as he drove all these meandering thoughts out of his head, protectively wrapping his left arm around her. When he could faintly feel the individual ridges of her ribs through the thin material of her shirt however, he couldn't help but to adjust his hold slightly; he did not and could not deal with any more thoughts. Instead, he slid his palm downwards, settling on the natural dip between her ribs and jutting hip bones, his fingers resting somewhere in the neighbourhood of her navel.

This didn't prove to be much of a solution in the end though; she let out a few situation-inappropriate giggles. He removed his hand from her frame altogether.

"Sorry." he sheepishly mumbled. "I didn't know you were ticklish there."

She tilted her head backwards to look him in the eye.

"It's alright." she softly told him. "I know that I'm not the cuddliest thing to protect but...I don't know why I started laughing. I'm not ticklish."

Before he could come up with any suggestions or even do anything, Rinoa gently took his left arm and slowly placed where it he had it earlier, delicately sliding the palm of his hand closer to her navel. When she had finished, she covered the back of his hand with her own to secure his hold instead of draping her arm on his chest like before. She did not giggle or allow her gaze to waver, not even when the tips of his pinky and ring fingers were brushing against bare skin where the hem of her shirt unintentionally rode up.

Still, all he could focus on was the fact that her eyes were on him even though they seemed so...lifeless. The disconnect puzzled him.

"I don't think I'll be back in a month." she stoically told him. "I'm sure you've already figured out that before... it was just wishful thinking."

After the words had died on her lips, some life returned to her chocolate-brown eyes, even regaining some of their natural warmness.

"But," she continued, "even if that's the case, I'll try to visit Balamb whenever I can. I'm sure that I can manage something since I know the train and bus routes like the back of my hand."

"In other words, you're going to sneak out." he quipped. He couldn't help but smirk a little when he noticed the faint blush spreading across her cheeks.

"Pretty much." she admitted. "I'd rather come and visit without needing to sneak out, but...after talking to my uncle on the phone, it almost sounded as if he wanted me to forget the few months I've been in Balamb all together, pretend I never had a fresh start here."

"...That sounds borderline delusional."

"I know...but I also can't blame him in a way. As far as they know, nothing positive's ever come from here. My uncle James was always very close to my dad and I'm more or less the daughter he and my aunt Nancy never had. I know that they know about the treatment centre and..._this_ doesn't really help that." She let out a soft, bitter chuckle. "It's almost ironic that they think that Balamb is worse when it has absolutely nothing on Deling."

"It still doesn't make it any less delusional." he dryly commented.

"I know, I know." she sighed in exasperation, closing her eyes and resting the side of her head against him shortly after. Squall remained quiet, aware that voicing his skepticism might have not been the best of choices in hindsight. Surprisingly enough, the seemingly-cyclical silence failed to return — something he hadn't anticipated.

As the unmistakable sound of rapping against his bedroom door pervaded his ears, he felt Rinoa relinquish her hold and sat up; Squall followed suit and slowly swung his legs over the edge of his bed. He was just in the process of standing up to walk over and answer the door when his eyes followed Rinoa's form doing just that for him. Instead, he reached out for the seat of desk chair with his good foot planted halfway between it and the bed and sat on it, turning his upper body to look at the doorway.

Within that short span of time, the door had opened, revealing Ellone through the door's frame on the other side of Rinoa.

All Squall could do was secretly thank Hyne that the sole kiss he and Rinoa had shared here hadn't developed into anything else or that Ellone hadn't opened the door before Rinoa had for her.

In spite of himself, the mere thought of having his sister walk in on anything, even something as tame as a lingering PG-rated display of affection, was the stuff of nightmares, even beating out the cringe-worthy 'advice' Laguna had given him a little while ago.

Though it didn't happen, it didn't help matters any that Ellone had started off with the customary, "I hope I wasn't interrupting anything."

"No, you weren't." Rinoa plainly answered. "We were just talking."

Squall caught his sister toss a cursory glance to his bed, which was still neatly-made for the most part, holding her gaze there for a moment before stealing a fleeting look at his face, ultimately settling her sights back on Rinoa.

"There are two people for you at the door Rinoa." she told the raven-haired teenager. "Were you expecting anyone to come by?"

"What do they look like? My aunt and uncle were supposed to come sometime today but I don't think they'd be this early."

"They're two girls who look like they're about your age. One has dark brown hair like you, the other has medium brown hair and they look like both are a little taller than you. I couldn't tell you much else because they're wearing hats, scarves and thick winter coats on."

From the doorframe, Rinoa wordlessly looked back at him. It didn't take Squall much to figure out why.

"Sounds like your friends." he commented, fully-well knowing that he was just humouring her. "...You should go see them."

After a slight nod, she disappeared into the hallway, leaving only him and his sister in the room. Ellone walked up to the desk, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder once she was close enough.

"How are you holding up?" she asked.

"The aunt and uncle are going to bring her back to Deling to live with them once the funeral's over." he flatly stated. "They didn't give her a choice."

"I'd ask if you were okay with that, but I think I already know the answer I'm going to get."

"It's not about me Elle." he replied, adjusting his position a little to begin getting up, picking the crutches he'd left leaning against the side of the desk facing the bed. Her hand lost its place on his shoulder once he stood up at full height. "She'll be better off with them."

And with that, he left the room much like Rinoa had done a minute or so prior and Ellone followed suit. Squall hadn't fully cleared the room's threshold without meeting a little resistance, however; his sister had placed a hand on his shoulder once more, making him stop.

"If you need to talk later on, just be sure to let me know, okay?"

She removed her hand and let him be when he left her offer unanswered, sidestepping past him and disappearing upstairs shortly after. Once she was completely out of sight, the teenager retreated back into the confines of his room. While he figured that Rinoa and her friends needed space to talk with what little privacy the entranceway of his house could offer and give them the same opportunities they previously had, he couldn't deny that he needed his space as well. He needed to ponder about how he would proceed from here, as he had no clear idea at the moment.

Lingering around her would only make that task all the more difficult.


	64. Chapter LXIII – Casting All Illusions

**Author's Notes** – Well, I don't have too much to say but I'd like to think that it'll be of some importance to you all.

After a great deal of thought and a change in heart, I realized that I would never be able to finish this if I tried to wrap absolutely everything up into neat little packages, especially since this story does not follow traditional structuring in the slightest.

This is the second-last chapter; the next will be the epilogue and both will be in Rinoa's point of view.

I hope you all understand.

* * *

**Chapter LXIII – Casting All Illusions Aside**

-

_It only hurts when your eyes are open,  
Lies get tossed and truth is spoken,  
It only hurts when that door gets opened,  
Dreams are lost and hearts are broken._

_**-Default, It Only Hurts.**_

-

With every step up the stairs, they grew closer within her sight, bursting the insular bubble she'd created within the confines of Squall's room and reinforcing the reality of things. Once she was up the full set of stairs, she momentarily paused, bracing herself to make proper eye contact with both figures at the end of the hallway.

The overabundance of winter clothing they were wearing could not disguise who they were or host doubt in her heart and mind; not when they did not bother to take any time to strip away the winter wear before briskly walking over to where she was and hug her in tandem, residual snow and all.

Warmed and chilled at the same time, not a single word escaped Rinoa's lips; she was simply appreciative of her friends' presence in this difficult and trying time, an appreciation which required no words to convey, only arms to reciprocate the hug. With both friends in front of her, Adrienne on her left and Ivy on her right, it was impossible to hide the sound of her hiccoughs after her tears had started to slowly meandering down her cheeks.

"Don't worry. We're here for you Rinoa." Ivy softly whispered, "You can cry as much as you need to."

"But...I don't want to." Rinoa answered back, stifling her tears. "I've cried enough already. I just...wanted to be thankful for the both of you coming to visit without making this more complicated than it has to be."

"Rinoa," Adrienne began to chide, "-with what's happened, neither of us expect to see a pillar of strength, especially not now. It's okay, we understand."

"I know, but...there's something you guys don't know and it's not good news." she confessed, breaking out of the embrace to be able to look them both in the eye properly. "...It's also why I didn't want to make things any harder than they had to be."

When Rinoa picked up on her friends' nervous tics, Ivy's slight quiver and Adrienne's subtle frown, she knew that now could not be the time to withhold secrets. "Once everything's taken care of here, I... have to move back to Deling with my aunt and uncle since they're my legal guardians."

Though they still hadn't removed their warm winter outerwear, it was nigh impossible not to notice that both of them had lost a bit of colour following her announcement.

"._..You're leaving?_" Adrienne blurted in a hushed whisper, "Don't they know that you're going to be eighteen and free to do whatever you want soon?"

"I know that they do but...as much as I want to stay here, I'm in no shape to live by myself or to be taken in by anyone. Even if I paid monthly rent, it still wouldn't be fair. I feel bad enough for burdening Squall and his family so much already and it's only been a few days."

"Are you going to come back at some point once things are settled though?" Ivy quietly asked.

"I'm not sure." Rinoa truthfully admitted. "I know that I'll visit whenever I can though. I won't completely disappear on you guys."

At this point, Ivy unzipped her coat and removed it, keeping it in front of her as she dared to let her quivering lips form into a slight smile.

"Good. I'll make sure to keep in touch with you too through e-mail, phone, text or whatever it may be."

"I will too." Adrienne chimed in, beginning to remove her coat as well. "We won't give you the chance to disappear."

After hearing the words come from her friends, the tears almost started to fall again without her consent. "I really appreciate both of you making me feel a lot better about this. Thank you."

"No problem." Adrienne added. "So...do you think it'd be okay if we borrowed you for a while?"

"Actually...if you take off your boots and other things, it should be okay to go into the living room. I don't think Squall or his family would mind."

After the suggestion had been made, both boot-clad teenagers looked back at the trail of snow and slush behind them on the cherry wood floor, eliciting self-conscious chuckles as they took off the rest of their things and slowly began to walk towards the entrance to put them away.

As her friends carefully moved forward while trying to avoid stepping in random puddles, Rinoa couldn't help but notice the sound of footsteps echoing behind her. After turning around, only to see Ellone climbing the stairs, the teenager moved to the side to let her pass. Just as she was one step short of the main floor, the brunette stopped, glancing at the others for a moment before catching Rinoa's eye.

Before she could catch herself, Rinoa found herself asking, "Is there...something wrong with Squall?"

Preceded by a short, hesitant pause, Ellone replied with a soft 'no' before heading upstairs as she probably intended to from the start. By this time, she had to shake it off as Adrienne and Ivy were back, now beside her on her left. Rinoa turned to face them and with a simple hand gesture, she motioned her friends to the nearby living room entrance.

As they walked through the living room's threshold, Rinoa drew a near-silent sigh, faintly reminiscing about the few intimate moments she had experienced in this very room before everything about her had become tainted with the lone text message. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Ivy's gaze for a fleeting split-second before she focused her attention on the couch on the far wall once more.

With the large likelihood that she, and possibly Adrienne as well, had heard her wistful sigh in the midst of the otherwise-ominous quietness, Rinoa made sure that she was the first to break the silence once they took their seats seconds later between the one arm rest on her left and both of her friends on her right. Fortunately for Rinoa, she noticed something worth asking about to jumpstart things.

"...Did you get that ring on Valentine's Day Ivy?" she asked, careful not to jump to conclusions with her wording though she was fairly certain her assumptions would be well-founded. Regardless of her neutral choice of words, this prompted her friend to blush a little.

"Actually, Paul proposed yesterday." she quietly answered, shyly covering the ring with her other hand. "We've both never been too big on the whole idea of Valentine's day so I think he chose the day after on purpose, especially since I had an ultrasound appointment that morning."

"Congrats." Rinoa told her with a demure smile. "You'll have to let me know about the details when you have things planned out."

Ivy whole-heartedly nodded. "Definitely. It won't be for quite awhile though. School and the little guy need to come first."

"—Plus you'll have killer boobs after you have the baby. Just think of the dresses." Adrienne quipped from Ivy's right, Cheshire grin and all.

"Adrienne..." Ivy began to chide, clearly ignoring her increasingly-reddening cheeks from her tone, "-not now."

When the grin instantly disappeared on Adrienne's face without any further quips or banter, Rinoa so sorely wanted to frown. But knowing that she damn well couldn't and shouldn't, she channelled her energies into reviving this faltering conversation into something positive, something she could use as a reprieve from the gloom.

But as luck, or lack thereof, would have it, it was also something she wished she had the capacity to think of at all right now. It was only when she felt Ivy's reassuring hand on her right knee and scarcely heard her words in the background when she realized that all she had achieved in the past while was to drift off into her little world.

"...Sorry, I didn't catch that." she found herself saying upon breaking out of the reverie.

"It's alright. I only asked if there was anything you wanted or needed to do while you're still in Balamb."

"Not off the top of my head. ...I've been in a bit of a bubble world with Squall for the past few days so it's kind of hard to really think of anything right now."

From the other side of Ivy, Adrienne leaned forward in her spot so Rinoa could see her. "So...were you still here when you found out?"

"I was." Rinoa quietly replied, half-expecting Adrienne to go on a different tangent afterwards upon hearing her answer. Instead, it seemed as though Ivy would be the one to ask the next question.

"Have you gotten the chance to go back to your house yet?"

The raven-haired teenager bit back another frown.

Once again, what normally should have happened hadn't. Rinoa almost wished she had the ability, not to mention the nerve, to stretch the truth a little so that the temptation to deviate from the topic at hand and towards something quintessentially more teenage would be too hard to ignore. But since that clearly wasn't the case, she co-operated with the well-intentioned question-fest and did all she could to suppress the budding sigh on her tongue along with that frown.

"I did." she told them. "I brought some of my clothes here and my neighbour's taking care of Angelo for now so...as far as the little things go, it's all handled."

After both her friends had said a, _'that's good'_ in eerily-perfect sync, causing the both of them to look at one another with a certain awkwardness, followed by a long and equally-awkward silence, Rinoa finally let that sigh and frown escape the confines of her conscious efforts despite those said efforts.

"You guys really don't have to look for things to help me with, really. I know you guys mean well but...I just want to be outside of the bubble I've stuck myself in, if only for a little bit. Could we just talk about things that don't have to do with...this?"

"...Alright, I can understand that." Ivy began. "...Is there anything you want to talk about?"

Rinoa shrugged. "Anything positive would do. Happy, funny, silly, just...anything like that."

Right after that, Adrienne looked at Ivy and said, "Well, maybe you could count what happened on Val—"

"—If you don't mind, I think I'll be the one telling the story if you're going to bring..._that_ up." Ivy curtly interjected, not even getting Adrienne a chance to get a word in edge-wise before she turned to face Rinoa. "On Valentine's Day, I was running late because I literally could not find anything to wear because most of my tops were either in the wash or clean but too small except for this one thing that I happened to find deep in my closet."

"...And it was beyond ugly?" Rinoa guessed.

"God yes." she exclaimed with a bit of a lingering chuckle. "It was carnation-pink sweater with a big white kitten on the front that used to belong to my mom, I think. Either way, Adrienne wouldn't quit laughing at me during cooking class so I made sure to catch Paul after he got out of his advanced gym class to borrow a t-shirt off of him. Even he couldn't quit laughing at me either so I tried putting the sweater on him as punishment once I changed out of it."

The raven-haired girl couldn't help but smile a little. "So...did you succeed at sweater-ing him?"

"No. But it was fun wasting our fourth period spare making that into a game. Don't ask me how I managed it but, after school, he voluntarily put it on and let me take a picture of us while he was wearing it."

"Ivy, you know it's because he really loves you, ridiculously-ugly sweaters and all." Adrienne light-heartedly said, finally letting her Cheshire grin return.

Surprisingly enough, Ivy didn't glare at her, jokingly or the regular variety, merely choosing to nod instead as she dug a hand in her pocket to fish out her cell. When she flipped it open, she showed it to Rinoa immediately as it was her phone's background image. Not even a second later, Rinoa just had to let out a good couple of chuckles at the heart-warming ridiculousness of it all.

"He looks so much different here than all the other times I've seen him." she quietly commented. "He looks a lot more relaxed here."

"I thought so too." she agreed with a demure smile as she continued to stare at the picture with her, resting her free hand on her stomach. "He's been taking this whole ordeal so seriously that I'm glad to have proof of a moment where he isn't. Hyne, I think everyone should have an ugly sweater picture like this."

"I think that Squall would kill me if I tried to put an ugly sweater on him."

"I could manage a girly coat picture if an ugly sweater picture is out of the question." Adrienne tried to josh while Ivy was pocketing the cell, making Rinoa let out another well-needed chuckle.

"Even if I convinced him to, I don't think he could fit in your coat Adrienne."

"You do have a point there." the aforementioned girl conceded. "That reminds me though. I forgot to ask how he did in the tournament. First place?"

Rinoa nodded. "Yes, but he won't be able to compete in the nationals; he screwed up his ankle badly right after winning the final match."

Adrienne reactively scrunched her face. "Ouch."

"It's alright though. He didn't seem to care about it all that much."

"Well...it's more than understandable considering what's happening now." Ivy reasoned.

"Actually, he told me about it long before anything happened." she softly said, careful not add any more words than necessary for fear of turning the conversation back to her parents and for fear of her still-delicate psyche. "That night, he was more focused on trying to cope with just getting around. The only reason I came here and cancelled on you guys was because he admitted it was a lot harder to handle being home alone than he thought over the phone...not that I turned out to be much help."

Though dulled from wistful recollection of the subsequent events that night, Rinoa could still feel the familiar tugging sensation at the corners of her lips as she fought to allow herself the luxury of truly thinking about what she'd just said.

_...He really is no different._

"_...Was it the first time together?_"

Rinoa didn't have to see who was speaking to know it was Adrienne trying to deduce what had to be the root of the then-beginnings of the half-smile on her face. She was about to shake her head but then, realizing that she had to say more to clarify because her friend wasn't asking if they had or hadn't, just if it was the first time or merely just a tryst for the occasion, a thought popped into her head.

"No, we haven't gotten that far at all. And to be honest, it's only been a week so...I don't think it'll happen for quite a while."

Just as she'd predicted, both girls looked at her rather quizzically. The wheels were set in motion now.

"But...didn't you say something completely different a couple days ago when I'd asked about how long you had been going out together?"

"I did but, it was a lie." she frankly replied, slowly shifting her gaze towards Ivy. Rightfully so, she looked as though she was weighed down more than Adrienne once the words seemed to have properly sunk in. With both girls opting not to say a word, it allowed Rinoa to continue immediately.

"While I have to admit that this is kind of a spur of the moment idea to tell you this now, it has been something on my mind for the past while and I feel that you guys deserve the truth after all you've done for me. A lot of this will sound sad or out of the blue since I have to start from the very beginning to properly explain things, but, please just bear with me. I need to do this now before I can't get another chance to do it."

After both Adrienne and Ivy tentatively nodded, Rinoa began without further pause, not wanting to give doubt or second thoughts even the faintest of opportunities to take hold and sway her decision.

"Before I came to Garden...I used to have an eating disorder, something I'd slipped into after a really bad breakup with an ex-boyfriend. I had been admitted to a treatment centre and even then, it took a better part of last year because I fought every step of the way. I only stopped fighting when I realized that I had to make an effort to get better if I wanted to ever come out of there so...that's what I did.

"When I'd finally gotten better enough to be discharged from the centre, I knew that I couldn't go back to my old boarding school, knowing that I was a ghost of who I used to be. I asked to transfer to a new school and luckily for me, I got my wish and ended up at Garden. Looking back, I probably should have gotten more help but back then, I thought that just getting a fresh start would be enough to keep me out of trouble."

"So...was the Halloween party the start of things going wrong again?" Ivy quietly asked; Rinoa nodded.

"It was. What had happened...it was slightly different scenario from what I told you both. Only up to the part where I was helping Nat was completely true."

"That...isn't very far in the story though." Adrienne nervously commented. "Did...someone make fun of how you looked in your fairy costume?"

"No. There was this guy, Tristan, who helped me get Nat on the couch after she passed out from puking. We hit it off really well and somehow, the conversation we were having eventually turned to the topic of exes and...my emotions got the better of me by then. I made things go way too fast between us that night and I messed up everything because of it. I...more or less worried myself sick over all the 'what ifs' the month after, losing a bit of weight because of my nerves even though he offered to start over and we worked at a friendship."

While looking at Ivy fight back a full-blown frown by biting her bottom lip, fully-well aware of the part of the story she was about to repeat, Rinoa almost wished that Adrienne's expression had been mirroring the other girl's instead of carrying that soon-to-be damned glimmer of hope in her slightly-glassy eyes, that she'd cynically put the pieces together instead of hoping for the brief happy interlude between bedding the nameless guy and the whirlwind of events and misunderstandings concerning Tyler.

"—But it didn't matter anyway. I ruined that too." she said, brusquely ending the very silence she'd created. Right then, she made a point to look at Adrienne now though she so sorely wanted to make a point of looking at her hands instead. "If I would have been healthier at the time...I'd probably have a bump comparable to Ivy's right now."

Her friend's eyes grew glassier, dipping her head for a brief moment to rub her eyes with her thumb and forefinger, clearly trying to retain some measure of composure. Although the temptation to start crying over still-healing wounds had been great, Rinoa knew that she had to press on and tell the rest of her story before it would be too hard to continue and do what needed to be done.

"The next few days after that, I couldn't stomach anything at all and lost more weight, making the doctors I check up with at the centre mad. I knew it was the wrong way to grieve but it was the only option I had, the only option I knew — I didn't have it in me to tell anyone how badly I messed up. The only person I told was him and he didn't take it too well. ...It's how I ended up ruining whatever friendship we did have then.

"Even still...I tried to learn from what had happened to move forward, only to get forced into the situation with Tyler not even a month later. I know I didn't say much about why we broke up to you both, but the truth is that he got the wrong impression because I _had _been acting like someone else for those few weeks I was with him, thinking I was getting back to who I'd been before at my old school. On your New Years Eve party, he wanted to go further but when I stopped it from happening, he looked disappointed and said, 'isn't this what you wanted?' and when I said no, I couldn't help but ask if that's all he was after all the long. He didn't answer at first and when he did say something, it was only that I 'couldn't blame him for acting on the impression he got.'"

Just as she finished her last sentence, Rinoa had to avert her gaze when it looked as if she metaphorically slapped Adrienne and Ivy hard with her story's words.

"By then, I was fed up with myself, wondering if I gave everyone the impression that I was an easy, superficial person. After moping around for a couple of days, I met up with Squall at the library for the history assignment to get it all ready. I was so desperate to do something about the possible reputation I had with people that I...more or less took advantage of him when I accidentally found out that he was failing Lit. I offered to help him with the class if he'd help me find ways to try to cope with and change the impression I gave people. Of course, he didn't go for it until I reminded him that he couldn't graduate if he didn't have that credit."

"So...were all the things that happened with the both of you in January just a trick to make everyone think differently of you?" Rinoa heard Adrienne ask, prompting her to turn her head and face them again.

"Yes and no." she truthfully answered. "What Nat and the rest of them said after Squall got sick complicated things too much to just stick with the original agreement. It basically boiled down to either flat-out ignoring their gossip and hope that it would blow over or to fake a secret relationship to try to save face."

"And you picked option B and it turned into something real last week, life imitating art and all that jazz?"

"I guess you could say that." Rinoa quietly agreed before purposely switching to more important matters. "I...wanted to tell you about all of this when I almost blew my cover last week, but I wasn't quite ready to admit all of this just yet. To be honest, I wasn't quite ready to say all of this today, but, on top of what I said earlier, I don't think I could keep this bottled up anymore with the stress of everything right now."

"I don't blame you Rin. After hearing everything you've just said, trying to find your way and reinvent yourself in a new environment sounds tough enough without all of the extra crap you had to go through."

"Actually...I never did succeed in reinventing myself. Even if I had, it would have been for nothing anyway." she confessed. "Although the charade with Squall never really achieved what I had hoped for, it indirectly made me realize that it doesn't matter what everyone else thinks as long as your friends stick by you and like you for who you are. I've...never really had friends like you guys so, I guess it's why it took this to make me learn that lesson."

"Please...you're going to make the both of us blush." Adrienne sheepishly said, followed by a hint of slight blush threatening to back up her words. Although Ivy didn't have a blush on her face, she did wear a smile as she leaned over a bit to mock-whisper in Rinoa's ear.

"I think that's Adrienne-speak for, _'Thank you for the kind words. I really appreciate it.'_"

Needless to say, the aforementioned friend tossed Ivy a pseudo-hurt look when they both looked rightward on purpose after the exchange had been made. "...Hey, I take offense to the idea that I need an interpreter."

"Well, if we get someone else here with a dry-erase board, you can have dubbed subtitles instead of an interpreter."

The pseudo-hurt look vanished on Adrienne's face right then and there, replaced by a surprised and slightly shocked look with her jaw and eyes threatening to respectively drop and widen.

"Ivy, I'm starting to think my whole family's a bad influence on you. That was actually funny."

Subsequent to acting as a mere bystander caught in the crossfire of their comedic banter, Rinoa couldn't help but act on impulse and get up from her seat just to hug the both of them. Although they had initially tensed up when she wrapped her arms around them, it wasn't long before Adrienne and Ivy relaxed enough to pull her in closer to tighten the embrace. It wasn't long before the hiccoughs and tears wracked her body but Rinoa could not make an effort to stifle them this time.

Even though Rinoa knew in her heart that they'd see each other again, the truth of the matter was that she was going to miss them and the unwavering support and acceptance they had never stopped offering.

Although she had denied herself this earlier, despite knowing this truth even then, she simply did not have the strength to take the same path this time. She needed to finally allow herself to indulge in a moment of vulnerability, to let her deeply-affected feelings be known without the facade of strength obscuring them, if only for a fleeting handful of seconds.


	65. Epilogue – Reminders of the Past

**Author's Notes** – With the exception of Locked Inside in early 2006, I have never finished a full-length story without leaving it incomplete. I have never wanted that for this story and I am more than proud to say that after three years and nearly three-hundred thousand words, I have finally finished Reinventing Me. This story has taken a life of its own far beyond what I had ever initially imagined and I don't think I would have wanted it any other way.

Well, best to get the conclusion underway. Cheers!

Oh and don't forget to review this time or else I'll send Nat's crazy ass after you guys. Kay?

Off-topic but...ain't it funny how I end up missing Valentine's Day by a day for the second year in a row? Go figure. XD

* * *

**Epilogue – Reminders of the Past**

_-_

_You're falling back to me,  
The star that I can see,  
But I know you're out there,  
Somewhere out there,  
You're falling out of reach,  
Defying gravity,  
I know you're out there,  
Somewhere out there.  
_

_**-Our Lady Peace, Somewhere Out There.**_

_-_

_Saturday, May 28__th__ —_

_Although it looks like I haven't written in my journal for quite some time, judging by the last entry's date in here, it doesn't feel that way in my head. I think I can partly blame it on so many events making everything seem like a huge blur but to be honest, it's not that big of a surprise that I've left this untouched for so long. But in any case, there's a lot I feel like I need to start writing down things now that it's a little less painful to jot down and reflect on some of the memories in the past year even though I am sure that I'll never forget most of what's happened. _

_I still have a hard time believing that I'm an orphan although I've seen Mom pass away right in front of my eyes, been through the funeral and received so many condolences from family and friends over and over again. If anything, it's made it harder because it gave a surreal feel to practically everything. Every morning, I mentally thank Squall for keeping me a little more grounded in those first few days. I'm pretty sure I would have flown away into la-la land if it weren't for him._

_God, I can still remember how un-Mom-like Mom was at the funeral. It was just so wrong to see her without her usual smile, like it was an alien instead of her in that open casket. I don't know what Dad's would have been like since Uncle James and Aunt Nancy had opted for a closed coffin for him but...I'm sure it still wouldn't have been the same either. Honestly, I remember very little of that day save for those impressions running through my head over and over. I can't even remember who was all there, what was said (or if I'd said any words) or even if I showed up fully-dressed. _

_I feel really pathetic reading those last few sentences over a few times while I'm trying to see if I can jog my memory a little better, but it is what it is I guess. Just another thing I have to accept among others. Maybe I can hold out for the odd chance that I'll someday remember a little more when I'm not trying so hard to think. Just maybe._

-—-—-

Setting down her journal in her lap and putting away the pen she into the nearby holder on the coffee table next to the chair she was sitting in, Rinoa let out a long, drawn out sigh as she reclined a little and closed her eyes for a moment.

Earlier today, she'd received word from Adrienne that Ivy had gone into labour sometime Friday afternoon. Since then, she'd been getting texts every so often from her, letting her know of how things were going, the last of which telling her that it looked as though she'd have the baby in an hour or two.

That update had been a little more than a half-hour ago and needless to say, she was currently anticipating her phone to start vibrating in her pocket any moment now. What she hadn't expected however, was to hear a loud knock at her door instead, making her flinch a little.

"_Rinoa...there's someone at the front for you._" a voice from the other side of the door said.

After letting the words sink in properly, Rinoa couldn't help but furrow her brows, wondering who in the world it could have been when she was pretty sure that no one she knew was aware of where she was exactly. Nevertheless, she put her journal on the table and got up from her chair to walk towards the door; she wasn't about to turn away from a much-needed a distraction from all the fruitless waiting she'd been doing anyway.

While she was walking down the winding corridor to the front, Rinoa couldn't help but feel the eerie sensation of déjà-vu magnify and fester inside her mind. The endlessness of the faded-green walls she passed began to blur, her heartbeat quickened and—

She promptly froze on the spot once she'd reached the lobby.

"._..Squall?_" she incredulously shout-whispered. Though her voice had been soft, it must have carried enough in the room for it to catch his attention and make him turn her way.

In that moment, all the memories of her parting Balamb flashed through her mind — waiting to see him one last time before leaving the funeral parking lot, the last hug they'd shared, the promise to visit him someday on her part, the frown he fought to hide on his face, the tears threatening then succeeding to fall down hers...for a mere second's worth of visions, the list of little things never seemed to end.

Even still, despite going through all those things on that day, she not once harboured the hope that he'd come visit on her turf and yet, there he was. His hair was a little longer and he was sporting a new cast to go with the cane she made him keep, but it was definitely still him.

"How...how did you find me here?" she blurted out.

"I did a little digging when your relatives said you weren't with them anymore when I tried their number the one day I couldn't get through to your cell." he explained. "...I had to wait until my ankle had healed enough from surgery to make the trip up though."

"...I see." she mumbled with her arms folded, secretly wanting to kick herself for not taking a minute to spruce up and throwing on something a little more decent beforehand. "Um...I can take you to my room here if you want for a little more privacy."

"Sure."

"Alright, just...follow me then."

As they began to walk down the corridor and towards her room, Rinoa couldn't help but notice the growing awkward silence looming over their heads. She wanted to say something to break it, maybe ask how the trip up was, how his foot was doing or just how he was in general, anything to break the ice in a slightly superficial way, but the embarrassment looming over her head along with the silence made it difficult to even want to say boo. No one was supposed to know that she was here, not even—

"...You look a lot better."

_...him?_

"_Oh_. ...Thank you." she mumbled, pretty damn convinced that parts of her face had somehow caught on fire and that talking would make him not notice the miraculous phenomenon. "So...um, how have you been? It's been a little while since we've last talked or e-mailed or...well, anything."

"Bored but alright, I guess." he honestly replied. "...You?"

"...I'm waiting for Adrienne to call me back sometime this afternoon. She's with Ivy at the hospital and from what I heard last, it shouldn't be much longer before Ivy has the baby." Rinoa told him as they rounded the last bend and entered her empty room; she almost couldn't believe how fast the trip felt after how long it seemed when she'd been walking the other way.

Pushing aside those thoughts, Rinoa casually flicked the light switch beside the door and walked ahead towards the far right corner where her bed was. She began to straighten out the crumpled sheets, knowing it would be easier for him if they both sat on the mattress since it was much higher than either of the two chairs in her room. Just after the task was accomplished and she turned around to sat on the bed, she was pleasantly surprised to see him sitting beside her already rather than still standing at the doorframe like she'd expected.

"Um...I didn't give you permission to sit down Squall."

He tossed her a look. "...I'm not falling for that on your ninth attempt at that joke."

"_Oh...damn._" Rinoa self-consciously tried to mouth in mock-defeat. "Thought you would have forgotten that one by now."

He shrugged. "I don't know why I remembered either."

"...Yet another mystery of the universe?" she offered.

He shrugged again. "Could be."

When whatever humour could be found in the situation had been thoroughly exhausted right after Squall had last spoken, the conversation seemingly nosedived straight down into another uncomfortable silence. Rinoa found herself aimlessly gazing into her hands instead of at the person beside her, searching for something to do or say to take focus off of where they were but failing miserably in doing so.

Letting go of a sigh she'd been holding hostage, she sat on her hands and finally dared to look to her right.

"So I guess...you want to know why I'm here and why I never told you?"

"...Only if you want to."

"Squall, I..."

'_Bzzzt..bzzzt...'_

"Um...hold on for just one second..."

As she plucked out her phone out of her pocket, Squall gave her some more space by moving over to the edge of the bed, opting to lie down shortly after. The second she took the call, the unmistakeable voice of Adrienne exuberantly came through on the other end.

"_Can you guess why I'm calling?_" she teased in a sing-song manner; Rinoa couldn't help but to smile to herself in spite of the situation she narrowly escaped moments prior.

"—Because there's a little boy that I have to meet now?"

"_Actually, no._"

"So...she didn't have him yet? ...Is everything alright?" she replied with a surprised lilt, fairly certain that her tone had caused Squall to sit back up, judging by the background noises she heard seconds later.

"_No, everything is fine it's just that you have a little __**girl**__ named Claire to meet._"

"_Oh._ That must have been a surprise."

"_It was but they're still really happy. Well, to be specific, Ivy's dead tired and happy and Paul's a happy nervous wreck. Either way, you'll definitely have to visit sometime. Claire is ridiculously cute, even in boys' clothes._"

Rinoa couldn't help but chuckle a little. "I'll bet."

"_Anyway, I have to go since my battery's dying. Be sure to let me know if you do plan to come to Balamb so the three of us can do something together._"

"I will. Tell Ivy and Paul congrats for me."

"_Sure thing. Talk to you later._"

"Bye."

"_Bye._"

After ending the call, Rinoa pocketed the phone and looked over at Squall who caught her gaze after a second or two.

"Well, it's official...Ivy's a mom to a little girl now." she quietly announced.

"...Everything go alright?"

"Yeah, it seems like it did. Adrienne didn't say there were any problems other than having to dress her in boy clothes at the moment."

"That's good to hear...well, save for that last part."

"...Yeah, it definitely is." she answered with a bit of a sigh, feeling a twinge in the pit of her chest. "I wish I could go and visit right away, but...I know that I have to finish what I set out to do here before any of that."

"So...you admitted yourself here?"

"...I did."

Although a part of her sorely regretted not taking advantage of the interruption and running with it right now, the more logical part of her realized that it would be next to impossible to fully enjoy Squall's visit and consciously ignore the chocobo in the room at the same time. In the end, Rinoa decided that it would be for the best if she made the proverbial big bird leave.

"To make a long story short, when I left Balamb...it wasn't long before I realized that I couldn't go on the way I had been anymore. I never had any energy, the dizzy spells were getting worse and when I couldn't bring myself to eat even when I wanted to, it was the final straw for me; I knew that I needed to swallow my pride and come back here if I ever wanted to get healthy again and stop hurting the people around me...even if I couldn't admit that I slipped again to those very people."

After she'd said her shortened piece, Rinoa felt as though all of the negative effects she had described earlier had come back to haunt her with vengeance in that very instant. Feeling light-headed and weak, she put her elbows on her knees and propped her head up as she looked at the floor, trying to regain stability and composure.

Although it wasn't long before she noticed the telltale signs that he'd moved closer —the dull give of the bedsprings and the sight of his feet inching towards her — the movements seemed to carry a certain hesitation to them despite their quickness. But as soon as she felt a reassuring hand against her back, what she had sensed earlier melted away.

Slowly turning her head to the side, Rinoa caught his gaze and never let it go.

"...I'm not disappointed in you if that's what you think." he told her, letting his hand linger on the small of her back.

"That still doesn't make it any less embarrassing."

"I don't see how it would be. If anything...it takes courage to admit that you have a problem and go on to do something about it."

"Realizing that you need to get outside help because you know you're powerless to help yourself isn't courageous Squall. If I would have gotten better on my own, maybe it would have."

"Rinoa...you're confusing bravery with courage. Bravery is being strong in the face of fear; courage is choosing to act in spite of it."

"Okay, maybe I did but..." Before she could get the words through, Rinoa sighed, "Whether it's bravery, courage or whatever...it doesn't change the fact that I have to see and deal with doctors who know it's my second stay here. Although they've been nothing but kind to me and I'm doing my best to do what they say... whenever I see any of them, I can't help but be reminded of the fact that I couldn't stay healthy after the first time around."

Instead of it becoming his turn to sigh in exasperation like she'd anticipated, Squall merely removed his hand from her back and rested it on his knee, never breaking eye contact as the lingering traces of emotion faded away from his face and left him with a neutral but serious expression.

"I'd make an argument against what you just said if I knew you'd listen to me."

"...Why do you assume that I won't listen until you say what it is?"

"Because what I had in mind is slightly patronizing and clichéd as hell. I'd rather make a suggestion that has potential to avoid being a complete waste of time." he frankly replied.

It was only when she tilted her head curiously that he bothered to elaborate on what the said solution was.

"If this place is reminding you of your failures, maybe you could switch to an outpatient program or leave altogether. Nothing would stop you since you're not a minor anymore."

"True...but the fact that I don't have my driver's license does." she politely pointed out. "It'd be too expensive to come here by taxi or too much to ask anyone to bring me here every week as a favour."

"Fair enough." he acknowledged before moving on. "...Would there be any problem in leaving altogether then?"

Rinoa shrugged. "It's hard to say. I'd like to think I could at this point but...it might be a lot harder with me being my own keeper. The easier solution would probably be to move back to my aunt and uncle's house but I'm guessing that you'd rather have me move back to Balamb instead."

"Don't make that kind of decision on my account. I'm not someone worth complicating your life over."

"I know, but I'll have to make this decision eventually, whether or not I choose to leave earlier." she pointed out. "And even if you don't think you're not worth complicating my life over, I don't think I'm someone worth becoming another '_what if_' in your life either. ...I'd like to pick what we had up where we left off just so we get a proper chance to see where it goes, good or bad."

"That can be done through compromise, not sacrifice." he replied. "...I'll figure something out regardless of where you go."

"Alright, I'll take you at your word for that." she conceded though a burgeoning smile was marring the seriousness of her tone. "I mean, I really should considering how stalker-ish you had to be in order to find me here."

The tone of conversation became decidedly less serious just as he gave her a look in kind. "...I'm not a stalker, I was just bored out of my mind and my parents told me to do something about it instead of continuously pacing around the house. There's a difference."

Rinoa couldn't help but to giggle at him. "Okay, I'll choose to believe that _only_ because I can easily picture you driving your family insane that way." she said. "I have to ask though, why didn't you just call or e-mail me more often if you were that bored?"

"I'm not a girl Rinoa; I don't call someone if there isn't a reason to call."

The teenager let out a singular long-drawn sigh. "You're a pest Squall, you know that?"

"That's nothing I haven't heard before." he shrugged.

Without uttering a single word of reply to him, Rinoa simply launched herself towards him into a spur-of-the-moment hug.

While she did not know what the future would have in store for them at this moment or where she would to go once she would be released from this place, what she did know as strongly as the feeling of his arms wrapping around her was that she would vow to only move forward, remembering the lessons she had learned over the past year and doing so without regret.

"_...Did you want to visit Ivy and her daughter in the hospital?_" she heard him whisper a couple of minutes into the hug, long after the previous exchange had ended and the initial shock of her impulsiveness had subsided. "_I could take you there if they'll let you leave for the rest of the day._"

As Rinoa looked up into his eyes, it was hard not to be mesmerized by their beautiful and intricate colouring.

"_No, not today._" she firmly whispered back. "_I just want to focus on what's in front of me for now if that's alright with you._"

"_It's alright._"

Just as he repeated some of her words back at her, another smile blossomed on face as she nestled herself against him and they allowed themselves to share a chaste but necessary kiss.

_No regrets, _she told herself one last time_, only reminders of the past to learn from._

**-—The End—-**


End file.
